Further reading
- David Womersley and Richard McCabe (eds.), Literary Milieux: Essays in Text and Context Presented to Howard Erskine-Hill (University of Delaware Press, 2008).
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Howard Erskine-Hill | |
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| Born | Howard Henry Erskine-Hill 19 June 1936 |
| Died | 26 February 2014 (aged 77) |
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| Thesis | Tradition and Affinity in the Poetry of Pope (1961) |
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| Discipline | English literature |
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| Main interests | Alexander Pope |
Howard Henry Erskine-Hill, FBA (19 June 1936 –26 February 2014) was an English literary scholar most notable for his work on the eighteenth century poet Alexander Pope. [1]
He was born in Wakefield and studied at a Methodist boarding school in Harrogate,Ashville College. [1] He was exempt from National Service due to his asthma and he studied English with philosophy at the University of Nottingham. [2] He graduated with a BA in 1957 and then embarked on his PhD thesis (also at Nottingham),titled "Tradition and Affinity in the Poetry of Pope". [3] [2]
From 1960 to 1965 Erskine-Hill taught English at the University of Wales,Swansea,ending his time there as senior lecturer. From 1965 to 1984 he was a lecturer in English at Cambridge University,then reader (1984–94) and professor of literary history (1994–2003). [2] From 1969 until 1980 he was a Fellow of Jesus College,Cambridge and in 1985 was elected Fellow of the British Academy,where he served on the publications committee (1987–94). [2]
In 1964 Oxford University Press published Erskine-Hill's edition of Horace's Satires and Epistles . [2] His Social Milieu of Alexander Pope was published by Yale University Press in 1975 and sought to place Pope's work in its historical context by analysing six figures who featured prominently in Pope's life and poetry. [1] In his review,Donald Davie said the book was "one of those very rare books which truly deserve the description:humane scholarship. It is very learned indeed. ... [H]is book is a great achievement,and also a great pleasure. ... I do not know when literary scholarship in England came up with anything so deeply satisfying". [4]
His next book,The Augustan Idea in English Literature,was published in 1983 and explored how writers from the time of Shakespeare to Pope used the Roman Emperor Augustus and his associated poets Virgil and Horace as a model to praise or criticise politics. [1] [5] Erskine-Hill explained in the preface:
The word ‘Idea’in my title is not intended to suggest that the English reception of Rome's Augustan Age involved one idea alone,as it might be for example,of peaceful empire,or of enlightened patronage of poets. ‘Idea’must perforce stand for a shifting pattern of ideas,some diametrically opposed,if pressed to their extreme forms. The grateful view of Virgil and Horace;the penetrating and hostile view of Tacitus;and the Christian providential view of Eusebius,each quite different from the others,are the major components of what may for the sake of brevity be termed the Augustan Idea. Separated out,they formed the arguments in a debate about the nature of Augustan Rome. Drawn together they composed a compound image in which compatibility was more evident than contradiction. [6]
In the book's introduction he explained:"Evidence has been presented and conclusions based on that evidence. I acknowledge the principle of truth as the end of scholarship,and have no interest in the production of subjective myth in the guise of criticism,or in the mere multiplication of readings none of which has any greater probability than the rest". [7] In his review,Frank Kermode complained of the "vanity" of Erskine-Hill's "mock-modest tone" in the introduction and said it was "quite deplorable" from "so pedestrian an author to put on such airs". [8] Emrys Jones called it "an ambitious and impressive work" which was not only "exceptional in the scope and quality of its reading but deeply considered in what it has to say". [9]
In 1992 Erskine-Hill unsuccessfully opposed Cambridge University's bestowal of an honorary degree on Jacques Derrida because he had derided the value of truth and that such academic recognition of Derrida would undermine educational standards. The pamphlet he wrote with Hugh Mellor exclaimed that "the major preoccupation and effect of [Derrida's] voluminous work has been to deny and to dissolve those standards of evidence and argument on which all academic disciples are based". [2]
In order to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Pope's death,Erskine-Hill set up a symposium in May 1994. This led to him being appointed to give the Warton Lecture on "Pope and Slavery". This and other papers from the symposium were published in the Proceedings of the British Academy in 1998. [2] [10]
In 1996 Oxford University's Clarendon Press published his two companion volumes on the relationship between politics and literature from William Shakespeare to William Wordsworth,Poetry and the Realm of Politics and Poetry of Opposition and Revolution. [2] He explained in the introduction to the first volume:
The chief contention of this book is that there is a political comment,often involving contemporary political ideas and historical circumstance,in some of the most powerful poetic works of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English literature,works which have in the past been usually read for their aesthetic achievement and generalized wisdom. I argue that this political component is an eventual part of their aesthetic life,and that that,in its turn,is part of that wider historical culture which it is the vocation of scholarship to explore with as much imagination and disinterestedness as it can. [11]
In 2008 Erskine-Hill's festschrift was published,edited by David Womersley and Richard McCabe. They said in the preface that Erskine-Hill's works "range from the most magisterial of research monographs to the most accessible of student introductions. ... In Howard the teacher and the scholar are one". [12]
Erskine-Hill's political views were originally left-wing;he was a Labour voter and a supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament but he moved to the right whilst at Cambridge. Although he voted for James Callaghan's Labour Party in 1979,he admired Margaret Thatcher's leadership during the Falklands War,during the 1983 general election he complained:"If you believe in democratic procedure and in defence,you cannot vote Labour this time. If you believe in government support for the economy and unemployment,you cannot vote Tory". [2]
Later on he embraced Euroscepticism;in 1991 he wrote to Thatcher to try and dissuade her from retiring from the House of Commons so that she could lead the campaign against a federal Europe. He also supported her idea of a referendum on the subject. He later supported the UK Independence Party. [2]
Throughout his life he was a supporter of Amnesty International. [1]
Abandoning the atheism of his student days,he joined the Church of England. In 1994,after the Church of England decided to ordain women,he converted to the Roman Catholic Church. [1]
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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.
John Dryden was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate.
This article focuses on poetry from the United Kingdom written in the English language. The article does not cover poetry from other countries where the English language is spoken, including the Republic of Ireland after December 1922.
The term Metaphysical poets was coined by the critic Samuel Johnson to describe a loose group of 17th-century English poets whose work was characterised by the inventive use of conceits, and by a greater emphasis on the spoken rather than lyrical quality of their verse. These poets were not formally affiliated and few were highly regarded until 20th century attention established their importance.
British literature is from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands. This article covers British literature in the English language. Anglo-Saxon literature is included, and there is some discussion of Latin and Anglo-Norman literature, where literature in these languages relate to the early development of the English language and literature. There is also some brief discussion of major figures who wrote in Scots, but the main discussion is in the various Scottish literature articles.
Absalom and Achitophel is a celebrated satirical poem by John Dryden, written in heroic couplets and first published in 1681. The poem tells the Biblical tale of the rebellion of Absalom against King David; in this context it is an allegory used to represent a story contemporary to Dryden, concerning King Charles II and the Exclusion Crisis (1679–1681). The poem also references the Popish Plot (1678).
In Latin literature, Augustan poetry is the poetry that flourished during the reign of Caesar Augustus as Emperor of Rome, most notably including the works of Virgil, Horace, and Ovid. In English literature, Augustan poetry is a branch of Augustan literature, and refers to the poetry of the 18th century, specifically the first half of the century. The term comes most originally from a term that George I had used for himself. He saw himself as an Augustus. Therefore, the British poets picked up that term as a way of referring to their endeavours, for it fit in another respect: 18th-century English poetry was political, satirical, and marked by the central philosophical problem of whether the individual or society took precedence as the subject of the verse.
Sir John Frank Kermode, FBA was a British literary critic best known for his 1967 work The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction and for his extensive book-reviewing and editing.
Restoration literature is the English literature written during the historical period commonly referred to as the English Restoration (1660–1688), which corresponds to the last years of Stuart reign in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. In general, the term is used to denote roughly homogenous styles of literature that centre on a celebration of or reaction to the restored court of Charles II. It is a literature that includes extremes, for it encompasses both Paradise Lost and the Earl of Rochester's Sodom, the high-spirited sexual comedy of The Country Wife and the moral wisdom of The Pilgrim's Progress. It saw Locke's Treatises of Government, the founding of the Royal Society, the experiments and holy meditations of Robert Boyle, the hysterical attacks on theatres from Jeremy Collier, and the pioneering of literary criticism from John Dryden and John Dennis. The period witnessed news becoming a commodity, the essay developing into a periodical art form, and the beginnings of textual criticism.
Augustan literature is a style of British literature produced during the reigns of Queen Anne, King George I, and George II in the first half of the 18th century and ending in the 1740s, with the deaths of Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift, in 1744 and 1745, respectively. It was a literary epoch that featured the rapid development of the novel, an explosion in satire, the mutation of drama from political satire into melodrama and an evolution toward poetry of personal exploration. In philosophy, it was an age increasingly dominated by empiricism, while in the writings of political economy, it marked the evolution of mercantilism as a formal philosophy, the development of capitalism and the triumph of trade.
Jonathan Charles Douglas Clark is a British historian of both British and American history. He received his undergraduate degree at Downing College, Cambridge. Having previously held posts at Peterhouse, Cambridge and All Souls College, Oxford into 1996, he has since held the Joyce C. and Elizabeth Ann Hall Distinguished Professorship of British History at the University of Kansas.
John Kerrigan, is a British literary scholar, with interests including the works of Shakespeare, Wordsworth and modern poetry since Emily Dickinson and Hopkins, along with Irish studies.
Anthony David Nuttall was an English literary critic and academic.
David Armitage is a British historian who has written on international and intellectual history. He has been chair of the history department and is Lloyd C. Blankfein Professor of History at Harvard University.
Derek Attridge FBA is a South African-born British academic in the field of English literature. He is Emeritus Professor of English and Related Literature at the University of York, having retired from the university in 2016, and is a Fellow of the British Academy. Attridge undertakes research in South African literature, James Joyce, modern fiction, deconstruction and literary theory and the history and performance of poetry. He is the author or editor of thirty books, and has published eighty articles in essay collections and a similar number in journals. He has held a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Leverhulme Research Professorship, and Fellowships at the National Humanities Center, the Bogliasco Foundation, the Camargo Foundation, and The Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies, and All Souls and St. Catherine's Colleges, Oxford. Among the visiting positions he has held have been professorships at the American University of Cairo, the University of Sassari, the University of Cape Town, Northwestern University, Wellesley College, and the University of Queensland.
English literature is literature written in the English language from the English-speaking world. The English language has developed over more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon invaders in the fifth century, are called Old English. Beowulf is the most famous work in Old English. Despite being set in Scandinavia, it has achieved national epic status in England. However, following the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the written form of the Anglo-Saxon language became less common. Under the influence of the new aristocracy, French became the standard language of courts, parliament, and polite society. The English spoken after the Normans came is known as Middle English. This form of English lasted until the 1470s, when the Chancery Standard, a London-based form of English, became widespread. Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400), author of The Canterbury Tales, was a significant figure developing the legitimacy of vernacular Middle English at a time when the dominant literary languages in England were still French and Latin. The invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1439 also helped to standardise the language, as did the King James Bible (1611), and the Great Vowel Shift.
The Hind and the Panther: A Poem, in Three Parts (1687) is an allegory in heroic couplets by John Dryden. At some 2600 lines it is much the longest of Dryden's poems, translations excepted, and perhaps the most controversial. The critic Margaret Doody has called it "the great, the undeniable, sui generis poem of the Restoration era…It is its own kind of poem, it cannot be repeated ."
The Threnodia Augustalis is a 517-line occasional poem written by John Dryden to commemorate the death of Charles II in February 1685. The poem was "rushed into print" within a month. The title is a reference to the classical threnody, a poem of mourning, and to Charles as a "new Augustus". It is subtitled "A Funeral-Pindarique Poem Sacred to the Happy Memory of King Charles II," and is one of several poems on the subject published at the time.
Sir James Runcieman Sutherland, FBA was an English literary scholar, Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern Literature at London University.
Geoffrey Tillotson, FBA was an English literary scholar and academic. He was Professor of English Literature at Birkbeck College, London, from 1944 to 1969.
