''The Task: A Poem, in Six Books'' is a poem in blank verse by

William Cowper William Cowper ( ; 26 November 1731 – 25 April 1800) was an English poet and Anglican hymnwriter. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th-century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scen ...

published in 1785, usually seen as his supreme achievement. Its six books are called "The Sofa", "The Timepiece", "The Garden", "The Winter Evening", "The Winter Morning Walk" and "The Winter Walk at Noon". Beginning with a mock-

Miltonic John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem '' Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and political ...

passage on the origins of the sofa, it develops into a discursive meditation on the blessings of nature, the retired life and religious faith, with attacks on slavery, blood sports, fashionable frivolity, lukewarm clergy and French despotism among other things. Cowper's subjects are those that occur to him naturally in the course of his reflections rather than being suggested by poetic convention, and the diction throughout is, for an 18th-century poem, unusually conversational and unartificial. As the poet himself writes,

Writing and publication

Cowper prefaced ''The Task'' with an account of its genesis:

A lady, fond of blank verse, demanded a poem of that kind from the Author, and gave him the SOFA for a subject. He obeyed; and, having much leisure, connected another subject with it; and, pursuing the train of thought to which his situation and turn of mind led him, brought forth at length, instead of the trifle which he at first intended, a serious affair – a Volume.

Lady Austen, a friend of Cowper's in the early 1780s, made this suggestion in the early summer of 1783, and he took the idea up, continuing in spite of sporadic returns of the depressive illness from which he suffered so much. On its completion the following year the poem was sent to Cowper's publisher

Joseph Johnson Joseph Johnson may refer to: Entertainment *Joseph McMillan Johnson (1912–1990), American film art director *Smokey Johnson (1936–2015), New Orleans jazz musician * N.O. Joe (Joseph Johnson, born 1975), American musician, producer and songwrit ...

, who had previously issued Cowper's ''Poems'' (1782). It was decided to add three shorter poems, ''An Epistle to Joseph Hill'', ''Tirocinium'' and ''

The Diverting History of John Gilpin ''The Diverting History of John Gilpin Shewing how he went Farther than he intended, and came safe Home again'' is a comic ballad by William Cowper written in 1782 in poetry, 1782. The ballad concerns a draper called John Gilpin who rides a Bolt ...

'', but, because of delays on Johnson’s part, the book did not appear until 1785. The venture was successful, and was soon followed by a second edition of the ''Poems'' in two volumes, ''The Task'' and its three attendants forming the second volume. Further editions were called for at short intervals for the next 40 years, for ''The Task'' had so caught the

Evangelical Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide Interdenominationalism, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "bor ...

spirit of the age that, according to one critic, "As ''

Paradise Lost ''Paradise Lost'' is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consists of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse (poetry), verse. A second edition fo ...

'' is to militant

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Catholic Church, Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become m ...

ism, so is ''The Task'' to the religious movement of its author's time."

Influence

In a letter

Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who hav ...

wrote,

Is not ''The Task'' a glorious poem? The religion of ''The Task'', bating a few scraps of Calvinistic divinity, is the religion of God and Nature: the religion that exalts, that ennobles man.

He is said to have loved the poem enough to have habitually walked about with a copy in his pocket. The poem is extensively quoted in the novels of

Jane Austen Jane Austen (; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots of ...

, and has been seen as deeply influential on her. The conversational diction of the

Lake Poets The Lake Poets were a group of English poets who all lived in the Lake District of England, United Kingdom, in the first half of the nineteenth century. As a group, they followed no single "school" of thought or literary practice then known. They ...

' works can be seen as stemming directly from ''The Task''. Certainly the young

Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake ...

wrote of Cowper's "divine Chit chat", and in later years praised ''The Tasks "chastity of diction" and "harmony of blank verse". In a 1796

letter Letter, letters, or literature may refer to: Characters typeface * Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet. * Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alphabe ...

Charles Lamb Charles Lamb (10 February 1775 – 27 December 1834) was an English essayist, poet, and antiquarian, best known for his ''Essays of Elia'' and for the children's book ''Tales from Shakespeare'', co-authored with his sister, Mary Lamb (1764–18 ...

testified to Coleridge's thorough relish for Cowper, and on his own account wrote of Cowper as an old favourite and of "reading the ''Task'' with fresh delight".

Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's ' ...

borrowed a copy while still a schoolboy, and the poem's influence on his ''

Tintern Abbey Tintern Abbey ( cy, Abaty Tyndyrn ) was founded on 9 May 1131 by Walter de Clare, Lord of Chepstow. It is situated adjacent to the village of Tintern in Monmouthshire, on the Welsh bank of the River Wye, which at this location forms the bor ...

'' and ''

The Prelude ''The Prelude or, Growth of a Poet's Mind; An Autobiographical Poem '' is an autobiographical poem in blank verse by the English poet William Wordsworth. Intended as the introduction to the more philosophical poem ''The Recluse,'' which Wordswort ...

'' is widely recognised. The late nineteenth century English novelist

George Gissing George Robert Gissing (; 22 November 1857 – 28 December 1903) was an English novelist, who published 23 novels between 1880 and 1903. His best-known works have reappeared in modern editions. They include ''The Nether World'' (1889), ''New Grub ...

read three books of the poem in April 1892, describing it as "rather a favourite of mine, oddly".Coustillas, Pierre ed. London and the Life of Literature in Late Victorian England: the Diary of George Gissing, Novelist. Brighton: Harvester Press, 1978, p.275

Critical editions

''The Task'' has been published as part of the Oxford Standard Authors ''Poetical Works of Cowper'', edited by H. S. Milford (1905), revised by Norma Russell (1967); also by the

Longman Longman, also known as Pearson Longman, is a publishing company founded in London, England, in 1724 and is owned by Pearson PLC. Since 1968, Longman has been used primarily as an imprint by Pearson's Schools business. The Longman brand is also ...

's Annotated Texts series in an edition by James Sambrook (1994).

Notes

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature ''The Cambridge History of English and American Literature'' is an encyclopedia of literary criticism that was published by Cambridge University Press between 1907 and 1921. Edited and written by an international panel of 171 leading scholars a ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Task, The Poetry by William Cowper Philosophical poems Christian poetry 1785 poems

Writing and publication

Influence

Critical editions

Notes

External links