The Counterfeiters: An Historical Comedy by Hugh Kenner & Guy Davenport

Author:Hugh Kenner & Guy Davenport [Kenner, Hugh & Davenport, Guy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Humor, History and Criticism, Imitation in Literature, General, Literary Criticism, Satire; English - History and criticism, 18th Century, English Fiction, English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh, English fiction - 18th century - History and criticism, Satire; English, European
ISBN: 9781564784162
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
Published: 2005-04-15T07:11:59+00:00

And by a very tiny miscalculation--which generous heat surely excuses--might such a bard not overlook some connotations of "dearly," or place the royal Repose within memory's reach of the word "sleep," and set between them (most unfortunately) the word "nodded"? All these expressions are contained in L; to appraise their interactions we need to know whether the subfield is L d, a dunce, or L s, a satirist. The kingly repose, the imperious kingly nod, these by the alchemy of "sleep" become ridiculous if the poem is signed "A. Pope." If it is signed, say, " Ambrose Philips," or not signed, these trifling flaws become bubbles in a torrent of adulation. Pope's signature does not merely accept responsibility for the libel, it creates the libel: so delicate are the forces that govern the esthetics of fraud. Indeed not everyone saw the libel created; a writer in Common Sense ( October 8, 1737), supposing Mr. Pope to be a poet "who but seldom meddles with publick Matters," singled out the Epistle as the only thing written on the government's side these last seven years. 14

____________________ 14 J. Butt, ed. Pope: Imitations of Horace, N. Y., 1946, xxxviii.

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