Alexander Pope was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, Pope is best known for his satirical and discursive poetry including The Rape of the Lock, The Dunciad, and An Essay on Criticism, and for his translations of Homer.
Joseph Addison was an English essayist, poet, playwright, and politician. He was the eldest son of Lancelot Addison. His name is usually remembered alongside that of his long-standing friend Richard Steele, with whom he founded The Spectator magazine. His simple prose style marked the end of the mannerisms and conventional classical images of the 17th century.
Events from the year 1714 in literature.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1717.
This article is a summary of the major literary events and publications of 1720.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1729.
This article is a summary of the major literary events and publications of 1734.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1761.
Ambrose Philips was an English poet and politician. He feuded with other poets of his time, resulting in Henry Carey bestowing the nickname "Namby-Pamby" upon him, which came to mean affected, weak, and maudlin speech or verse.
Héloïse, variously Héloïse d'Argenteuil or Héloïse du Paraclet, was a French nun, philosopher, writer, scholar, and abbess.
Eloisa to Abelard is a verse epistle by Alexander Pope that was published in 1717 and based on a well-known medieval story. Itself an imitation of a Latin poetic genre, its immediate fame resulted in a large number of English imitations throughout the rest of the century and other poems more loosely based on its themes thereafter. Translations of varying levels of faithfulness appeared across Europe, starting in the 1750s and reaching a peak towards the end of the 18th century and the start of the 19th. These were in the vanguard of the shift away from Classicism and towards the primacy given emotion over reason that heralded Romanticism. Artistic depictions of the poem's themes were often reproduced as prints illustrating the poem; there were also paintings in France of the women readers of the amorous correspondence between the lovers.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
John Hughes was an English poet, essayist and translator. Various of his works remained in print for a century after his death, but if he is remembered at all today it is for the use others made of his work. Texts of his were set by the foremost composers of the day and his translation of the Letters of Abelard and Heloise was a major source for Alexander Pope's Eloisa to Abelard.
George Sewell was an English physician and poet, known as a controversialist and hack writer.
Peter Abelard was a medieval French scholastic philosopher, leading logician, theologian, poet, composer and musician.
Edward Jerningham was a poet who moved in high society during the second half of the 18th century. Born at the family home of Costessey Park in 1737, he died in London on 17 November 1812. A writer of liberal views, he was savagely satirised later in life.
James Cawthorn was born in Sheffield on 4 November 1719 and died in Tonbridge on 15 April 1761. A school master in holy orders, he was a minor English poet and imitator of Alexander Pope.
Thomas Warwick was a poet and unbeneficed clergyman of Cornish origin, born about 1755, died after 1785. He took part in the revival of the sonnet form at the end of the 18th century and his other writing included odes and poems on mediaeval subjects. His behaviour was described as eccentric and he died early in a carriage accident.