Britannia's Issue: The Rise Of British Literature From Dryden To Ossian

Howard D. Weinbrot's Britannia's Issue chronicles the developing confidence in British letters and values from the 1660s to the 1760s. His wide range of evidence includes biblical, classical, economic, English, French, and Scottish sources that help to show eighteenthcentury Britain's movement away from classical and towards native values and models in an expanding nation. He demonstrates that Dryden's Essay of Dramatick Poesie reflects nationalist aesthetics, that Pope's Rape of the Lock affirms domestic harmony while rejecting Homeric violence, and that Windsor Forest sings unRoman peaceful expansion through trade. Thereafter, he makes plain how Dryden, Gray, and Collins naturalize the Greek ode, how philosemitism and its limits help to illuminate Handel's Israel in Egypt and Smart's Song to David, and how post-Culloden "Celtomania" influenced Macpherson's Ossian poems. These and other works belong to a united kingdom that respects the classics but regards them as only one part of Britain's literary and generic synthesis. This learned and lucidly written book offers revisionist but historically grounded interpretations of important works within complex and varied eighteenth-century British cultures. BRITANNIA'S ISSUE BRITANNIA'S ISSUE THE RISE OF BRITISH LITERATURE FROM DRYDEN TO OSSIAN HOWARD D. WEINBROT VILAS PROFESSOR AND RICARDO QUINTANA PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN, MADISON CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www. Cambridge. org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521325196 © Cambridge University Press 1993 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1993 This digitally printed first paperback version 2006 A catalogue recordfor this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Weinbrot, Howard D. Britannia's issue: the rise of British literature from Dryden to Ossian / Howard D. Weinbrot. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 0-521-32519-6 1. English literature - 18th century - History and criticism. 2. English literature - Early Modern, 1500-1700 - History and criticism. 3. Nationalism - Great Britain - History - 18th century. 4. Nationalism - Great Britain - History - 17th century. 5. National characteristics, British, in literature. 6. Great Britain in literature. 7. Nationalism in literature. 8. Nativism in literature. 9. Aesthetics, British. I. Title. PR448.N38W44 1993 820'.9 - dc20 92-33564 CIP ISBN-13 978-0-521-32519-6 hardback ISBN-10 0-521-32519-6 hardback ISBN-13 978-0-521 -03410-4 paperback ISBN-10 0-521-03410-8 paperback FOR GREGORY WILLIAM WEITZNER AND PERRY MARTIN WEITZNER AND AARON LOUIS WEITZNER HELLO AND WELCOME THE AUTHOR AND PUBLISHERS ARE GRATEFUL TO THE WILLIAM FREEMAN VILAS TRUST ESTATE, MADISON, WISCONSIN, FOR A GENEROUS SUBVENTION IN SUPPORT OF THE PUBLICATION OF THIS BOOK. CONTENTS Acknowledgments and editorial notes INTRODUCTION PART I 1 An overview of scope and method page xv 1 CONTEXTS: INTELLECTUAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL, AND NATIONAL 17 Prologue to Part i 19 MODERNS, ANCIENTS, AND THE SECULAR: THE LIMITS OF SOUTHERN HEGEMONY 25 Reading the classics Fallen, fallen, a silent heap One perpetual ferment Caesar and Virgil shall differ but in sound