This article is a descriptive summary of critical views of eighteenth‐century poetry, from the 1950s to the present. It looks at general surveys of poetry of the period from 1700 to 1790, as well as the most influential criticism of specific poets. It is not intended to be exhaustive, but rather an introduction to major trends and approaches, and to offer some descriptions of criticism of all significant poets. After an initial introduction, it is organised according to the following categories: Pope and the Scriblerians, the long poem, the mid‐century and poetry near the close of the century.
This chapter discusses the various ways in which the concept of suffering occurs in Johnson’s writing and thought. It considers the two principles uses of the verb, whereby suffering is either something that happens or is allowed to happen, and relates these to different examples, from the characters and ideas of Rasselas, Johnson’s writings on art and literature (including the annotations to Shakespeare, the “Lives” of Waller, Addison, Savage, and Pope) and his periodical essays. The argument demonstrates how the impossibility of understanding suffering in a providential world (and yet the necessity of striving to do so), results in Johnson’s trenchant and coruscating criticisms of the facile views of suffering displayed in Pope’s Essay on Man, and Jenyns’s inquiry on the nature of evil; the rejection of complacency stresses the importance of understanding suffering in Johnson’s work and life.
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