The Difficulties of Quantifying Taste: Blackmore and Poetic Reception in the Eighteenth Century

Adam Rounce

NOTES

1. The variant runs, “Poet, whoe’er thou art, I say God damn thee, /Take my advice and burn thy Mariamne” (Vieth 219).
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2. The Digital Miscellanies Index can be found at http://www.digitalmiscellaniesindex.org. The present essay draws in part on experience of working as a Consultant for this invaluable project, in particular the attribution of canonical poets.
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3. First published in the Pope/Swift Miscellanies volume of 1732; see Gay 2.636, for the attribution to him.
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4. For the relationship between the poetics of Creation and Whig ideas of the sublime, see Williams 186-9.
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5. Creation appears seven times, though four of these are reprintings in new editions: Essays in Prose and Verse (1775, two extracts); The Virgin Muse (1717, 1722, 1731); and The Plain Dealer (1730, 1734). Prince Arthur makes twenty appearances: Bysshe’s Art of English Poetry (1702, two extracts); Athenian Sport (1707, two extracts); The Agreeable Variety (1717, 1724, 1742, five extracts in each); and The Morning Walk or City Encompassed (1751). His only other frequently included poem is from his Paraphrase on the Book of Job (1700): the extracted version of the 2nd Psalm appearing in the volume of religious verse, Divine Hymns and Poems on Several Occasions (1704, 1707, 1709, 1719, 1757).
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