"Peri Bathous, Or the Art of Sinking in Poetry" is a short essay by Alexander Pope published in 1728. The aim of the essay is to ridicule contemporary poets.
"Peri Bathous, Or the Art of Sinking in Poetry" is a short essay by Alexander Pope published in 1728. The aim of the essay is to ridicule contemporary poets.
"Peri Bathous" is a blow Pope struck in an ongoing struggle against the "dunces". It is a prose parody of Longinus' Peri Hupsous ( On the Sublime ), in that he imitates Longinus' system for the purpose of ridiculing contemporary poets. According to John Upton, the title reflects an actual phrase in Longinus' treatise, εἰ ἔστιν ὕψους τις ἢ βάθους τέχνη, in which "βάθους" is a scribal error for "πάθους". [1]
With the essay, Pope introduced the use of the term "bathos" (Greek βάθος, depth, the antonym to ὕψος (hupsos), height) to mean a failed attempt at sublimity, a ridiculous failure to sustain it, or, more generally, an anticlimax.
Although Pope's manual of bad verse offers numerous methods for writing poorly, of all these ways to "sink", the method that is most remembered now is the act of combining very serious matters with very trivial ones. The radical juxtaposition of the serious with the frivolous does two things. First, it violates "decorum", or the fittingness of subject, and, second, it creates humor with an unexpected and improper juxtaposition.
In chapter X, titled Of Tropes and Figures: and first of the variegating, confusing and reversing Figures, Pope explains the comic use of tropes and figures of speech. [2] This part is continued in chapter XI, titled The Figures continued: Of the Magnifying and Diminishing Figures. Among the figures covered are: Catachresis.
The nearest model for Pope's essay is the Treatise of the Sublime by Boileau of 1712. Pope admired Boileau, but one of Pope's (and Swift's) literary adversaries, Leonard Welsted, had issued a "translation" of Longinus in 1726 that was merely a translation of Boileau. Because Welsted and Pope's other foes were championing this "sublime," Pope commented upon and countered their system with his Peri Bathous in the Swift-Pope-Gay-Arbuthnot Miscellanies. Whereas Boileau had offered a detailed discussion of all the ways in which poetry could ascend or be "awe-inspiring," Pope offers a lengthy schematic of the ways in which authors might "sink" in poetry, satirizing the very men who were allied with Ambrose Philips. Pope and Philips had been adversaries since the publication of Pope's Odes, and the rivalry broke down along political lines.
One example of Pope's style and satire shows in his description of sinking in painting. In the commonplace Academic hierarchic ranking of pictorial genres, still life ranked the lowest. However, Pope describes how it might fall and, with the single word "stiffen," evokes the unnatural deadness that is a mark of failure even in this "low" genre:
| Plays |
|  |
|---|---|---|
| Essays | ||
| Poetry |
| |
| Related | ||
| People | ||
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.
A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature's goals and methods. Although the two activities are closely related, literary critics are not always, and have not always been, theorists.
Catachresis, originally meaning a semantic misuse or error—e.g., using "militate" for "mitigate", "chronic" for "severe", "travesty" for "tragedy", "anachronism" for "anomaly", "alibi" for "excuse", etc.—is also the name given to many different types of figures of speech in which a word or phrase is being applied in a way that significantly departs from conventional usage.
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, often known simply as Boileau, was a French poet and critic. He did much to reform the prevailing form of French poetry, in the same way that Blaise Pascal did to reform the prose. He was greatly influenced by Horace.
John Arbuthnot FRS, often known simply as Dr Arbuthnot, was a Scottish physician, satirist and polymath in London. He is best remembered for his contributions to mathematics, his membership in the Scriblerus Club, and for inventing the figure of John Bull.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1712.
Bathos is a literary term, first used in this sense in Alexander Pope's 1727 essay "Peri Bathous", to describe an amusingly failed attempt at presenting artistic greatness. Bathos has come to refer to rhetorical anticlimax, an abrupt transition from a lofty style or grand topic to a common or vulgar one, occurring either accidentally or intentionally. Intentional bathos appears in satirical genres such as burlesque and mock epic. "Bathos" or "bathetic" is also used for similar effects in other branches of the arts, such as musical passages marked ridicolosamente. In film, bathos may appear in a contrast cut intended for comic relief or be produced by an accidental jump cut.
On the Sublime is a Roman-era Greek work of literary criticism dated to the 1st century C.E. Its author is unknown, but it is conventionally referred to as Longinus or Pseudo-Longinus. It is regarded as a classic work on aesthetics and the effects of good writing. The treatise highlights examples of good and bad writing from the previous millennium, focusing particularly on what may lead to the sublime.
Sir Richard Blackmore, English poet and physician, is remembered primarily as the object of satire and as an epic poet, but he was also a respected medical doctor and theologian.
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.
The Dunciad is a landmark, mock-heroic, narrative poem by Alexander Pope published in three different versions at different times from 1728 to 1743. The poem celebrates a goddess, Dulness, and the progress of her chosen agents as they bring decay, imbecility, and tastelessness to the Kingdom of Great Britain.
John Ozell was an English translator and accountant who became an adversary to Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope.
Leonard Welsted was an English poet and "dunce" in Alexander Pope's writings. Welsted was an accomplished writer who composed in a relaxed, light hearted vein. He was associated with Whig party political figures in his later years, but he was tory earlier, and, in the age of patronage, this seems to have been more out of financial need than anything else.
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.
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.
The sublime in literature refers to the use of language and description that excites the senses of the reader to a degree that exceeds the ordinary limits of that individual's capacities.