Hello visitors! This blog is written as a thinking activity under the topic of Neo- Classical age, we were asked to answer two questions out of four and I have written on Write in brief about your favorite major/minor writer of the age And in brief about your favorite work from the Neoclassical Age.
"There is a pleasure in poetic pains
Which only poets know."
William Cowper was an English poet and hymnodist. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th-century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside. In many ways, he was one of the forerunners of Romantic poetry. Samuel Taylor Coleridge called him "the best modern poet". He recovered from the attack of insanity and wrote more religious hymns. His religious sentiment and association with John Newton led to much of the poetry for which he is best remembered, and to the series of Olney Hymns. He also wrote a number of anti-slavery poems and his friendship with Newton, who was an avid anti-slavery campaigner, resulted in Cowper being asked to write in support of the Abolitionist campaign.
Cowper was born on 26 November 1731 in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. His father John Cowper was rector of the Church of St Peter. His father's sister was the English poet Judith Madan. His mother was Ann née Donne. He and his brother John were the only two of seven children to live past infancy. Ann died giving birth to John. His mother’s death at such an early age troubled William deeply.
Cowper was first enrolled in Westminster School in April of 1742, He had begun to study Latin from a young age, and was an eager scholar of Latin for the rest of his life. Older children bullied Cowper through many of his younger years. He read through the Iliad and the Odyssey, which ignited his lifelong scholarship and love for Homer’s epics. He grew skilled at the interpretation and translation of Latin, which he put to use for the rest of his life. He was skilled in the composition of Latin as well and wrote many verses of his own.
Later he started training for a career in law. During this time, he spent his leisure time at the home of his uncle where he fell in love with his cousin Theodora, whom he wished to marry. But her father refused to accede to the wishes of his daughter and nephew. This refusal left Cowper distraught. He suffered his first severe attack of depression/mental illness, referred to at the time as melancholy.
In 1763 he was offered a Clerkship of Journals in the House of Lords, but broke under the strain of the approaching examination; he experienced a period of depression and insanity. At this time he tried three times to commit suicide and was sent to Nathaniel Cotton's asylum at St. Albans for recovery. His poem beginning "Hatred and vengeance, my eternal portions" was written in the aftermath of his suicide attempt.
After recovering, he settled at Huntingdon with a retired clergyman named Morley Unwin and his wife Mary. Cowper grew to be on such good terms with the Unwin family that he went to live in their house, and moved with them to Olney. There he met curate John Newton (a former captain of slave ships) who had devoted his life to the gospel. Not long afterwards, Morley Unwin was killed in a fall from his horse; Cowper continued to live in the Unwin home and became greatly attached to the widow Mary Unwin. At Olney, Newton invited Cowper to contribute to a hymnbook that he was compiling. The resulting volume, known as Olney Hymns, was not published until 1779
In 1773, Cowper experienced an attack of insanity, imagining not only that he was eternally condemned to hell, but that God was commanding him to make a sacrifice of his own life. Mary Unwin took care of him with great devotion, and after a year he began to recover. In 1779, after Newton had moved from Olney to London, Cowper started to write poetry again. Mary Unwin, wanting to keep Cowper's mind occupied, suggested that he write on the subject of The Progress of Error. After writing a satire of this name, he wrote seven others. These poems were collected and published in 1782 under the title Poems by William Cowper, of the Inner Temple, Esq.
His mother’s death at such an early age troubled William deeply and was the subject of his poem, "On the Receipt of My Mother's Picture", written more than fifty years later.
In 1781 Cowper met a sophisticated and charming widow named Lady Austen who inspired new poetry - ‘The Task’. In the same volume Cowper also printed "The Diverting History of John Gilpin", a notable piece of comic verse.
Cowper and Mary Unwin moved to Weston Underwood, Buckinghamshire, in 1786, having become close with his cousin Lady Harriett Hesketh (Theodora's sister). During this period he started his translations of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey into blank verse. His versions (published in 1791) were the most significant English renderings of these epic poems since those of Alexander Pope earlier in the century. Mary Unwin died in 1796, plunging Cowper into a gloom from which he never fully recovered.
He did continue to revise his Homer for a second edition of his translation. Aside from writing the powerful and bleak poem, "The Castaway", he penned some English translations of Greek verse and translated some of the Fables of John Gay into Latin.
He also wrote a number of anti-slavery poems and his friendship with Newton, who was an avid anti-slavery campaigner, resulted in Cowper being asked to write in support of the Abolitionist campaign.
Cowper was seized with dropsy in the spring of 1800 and died. He is buried in the chapel of St Thomas of Canterbury, St Nicholas's Church in East Dereham, and a stained-glass window there commemorates his life.
THE TASK
The Task was an outrageous and bold publication of its time. As a White man, his outspoken support for the Blacks and criticism of the slave trade at its height was a scandalous move in English society. It’s a must read for everyone interested in the history of slavery and Abolitionist movement all over the world. The poem is a meditative one and is divided into six different books, each dealing with a different subject.
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
The Task: A Poem in Six Books is a poem in blank verse by William Cowper 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 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.
...my raptures are not conjur'd up
To serve occasions of poetic pomp,
But genuine...
— Book 1, lines 151-53
The first book is entitled "The Sofa" and in its introduction, the narrator claims that this poem was created when one of the author's friends challenged him to write a poem using a sofa as the inspiration. The simple objects began a meditative process inside the narrator's mind on the true meaning of life. The narrator presents in the first part of this book the ideal image of family life, protected and idyllic. The image then changes slowly and as the narrator approaches the sofa, life becomes harder and new challenges appear.
The poem ends with death after a long and miserable existence. The narrator tries to warn the reader to avoid an attitude characterized by folly and to never forget that one day, he will die as well and everything he worked for will be lost forever.
The second book "The Timepiece" is similar to the first one in the sense it is also a meditation on life. This time, the narrator is isolated and alone, living in the middle of the wilderness. The reason for his isolation is soon revealed and is identified as the inability to accept the horrors which take place in the world on a day to day basis. The narrator is unable to accept them and as such has to live isolated.
The main idea transmitted through this second part is that those who are different and who care about the world around them will never find happiness. They will forever be cursed to be strangers in a world unable to understand them and to help them fit in. This perpetual suffering can end only in death, described here as a peaceful passing to a realm filled with happiness and joy.
The third book, "The Garden", is a meditation on the beauty and purity of nature. The natural wonders the narrator experiences while taking a walk are compared to the destruction humans caused. Nature is described as the only place when one person can truly find happiness and feel close to the Creator. Because of this, the narrator urges his readers to try and take notice of the world around them and to try and protect it as much as they can, living alongside it rather than trying to subdue it.
The last two books deal with the same subject, namely silence and its value. The action in both cases takes place in the middle of the winter when everyone is sitting inside their warm homes and the outside world presents itself to the onlooker in all its glory. This time is identified as being ideal for deep meditation since a person could spend hours upon hours thinking about the world and the meaning of life.
It’s influence is seen in a letter Robert Burns wrote,
"Isn't The Task a glorious poem? The religion of The Task, beating 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, and has been seen as deeply influential on her.
These are my answers to the questions given, if you find any changes or improvement please write in comment. Thank you for visiting.
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