''The Castle of Indolence'' is a poem written by James Thomson, a Scottish poet of the 18th century, in 1748. According to the Nuttall Encyclopedia, the Castle of Indolence is ''"a place in which the dwellers live amid luxurious delights, to the enervation of soul and body."'' The poem is written in Spenserian stanzas at a time when they were considered outdated and initiated an interest in this stanza form which would later have a strong influence upon the English Romantic poets

Lord Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...

William 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 ' ...

, and

John Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculos ...

Influence

Washington Irving Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories " Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and "The Legen ...

quotes four lines from Canto I, VI from the poem in his tale "

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is a gothic story by American author Washington Irving, contained in his collection of 34 essays and short stories titled '' The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.'' Written while Irving was living abroad in Bir ...

", using them to open the story and set the scene:

A pleasing land of drowsy-hed it was,
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
Forever flushing round a summer-sky

Lines from Canto I, XXX are used as the epigraph to Chapter XIII of

Ann Radcliffe Ann Radcliffe (née Ward; 9 July 1764 – 7 February 1823) was an English novelist and a pioneer of Gothic fiction. Her technique of explaining apparently supernatural elements in her novels has been credited with gaining respectability for G ...

's ''

The Mysteries of Udolpho ''The Mysteries of Udolpho'', by Ann Radcliffe, appeared in four volumes on 8 May 1794 from G. G. and J. Robinson of London. Her fourth and most popular novel, ''The Mysteries of Udolpho'' tells of Emily St. Aubert, who suffers misadventures th ...

''.

Thomas De Quincey Thomas Penson De Quincey (; 15 August 17858 December 1859) was an English writer, essayist, and literary critic, best known for his '' Confessions of an English Opium-Eater'' (1821). Many scholars suggest that in publishing this work De Quinc ...

cites from Thomson in ''

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater ''Confessions of an English Opium-Eater'' ( 1821) is an autobiographical account written by Thomas De Quincey, about his laudanum addiction and its effect on his life. The ''Confessions'' was "the first major work De Quincey published and the o ...

'', laced into his description of sitting fireside upon a wintry evening:

And at the doors and windows seem to call,
As heav'n and earth they would together mell;
Yet the least entrance find they none at all;
Whence sweeter grows our rest secure in massy hall.

References

External links

Canto 1 of ''The Castle of Indolence''
1748 poems Fictional fortifications Scottish poems Fictional buildings and structures originating in literature {{UK-poem-stub