Mock-Heroic from Butler to Cowper: An English Genre and Discourse - Studies in Early Modern English Literature - Richard Terry - Books - Taylor & Francis Ltd - 9780754606239 - March 18, 2005
In case cover and title do not match, the title is correct

Mock-Heroic from Butler to Cowper: An English Genre and Discourse - Studies in Early Modern English Literature 1st edition


Get an email once the item is available
Do you have a profile? Log in
Get notified about new Richard Terry releases
Add to your iMusic wish list

Not rated yet

Mock-heroic is the exemplary genre of the English Augustan era: it is one of the few genres that the Augustans invented themselves, and it stands in a symbolic relation to a culture still reverential of the grandeurs of the classical past and uneasy about its ability to emulate them. Mock-Heroic from Butler to Cowper shows the protean nature of mock-epic at this time. It recounts the rise of mock-heroic, discusses the properties of the form, and explores its relation both to classical epic and to contemporary genres such as the poetic travesty and the novel. It also tracks the relation of mock-heroic to the concept to the sublime, especially to the low sublime unwittingly perfected by Richard Blackmore. Terry goes beyond previous commentators in arguing that mock-heroic was not merely a conventional genre, but also provided a supple discourse through which writers could represent a range of personal and social issues. He identifies mock-heroic properties in the Mandevillian discourse of economics and in the rhetoric of male gallantry towards women, in which women were simultaneously elevated and put down. He also sees mock-heroic as informing the idea of divine grace in the poetry and letters of William Cowper. Mixing a historical approach with incisive close readings, Terry provides a powerful re-evaluation of the form.


224 pages

Media Books     Hardcover Book   (Book with hard spine and cover)
Released March 18, 2005
ISBN13 9780754606239
Publishers Taylor & Francis Ltd
Pages 224
Dimensions 150 × 220 × 20 mm   ·   453 g
Language English  

More from the same publisher