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Posts Tagged ‘Jonathan Swift’

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Senior Seminar Midterm Regurgitation?

Mary Robinson?s ?London Summer Morning? is a cheap rip-off of Swift?s ?A Description of The Morning?; she gives us a list of London sights and sounds ? but without the satirical bite.?
?? [Fictional] Professor Larry Hunt?

In Mary Robinson?s poem ?London Summer Morning? (1800) and Jonathan Swift?s ?A?

Description of The Morning? (1709), each poet similarly departs from the classical pastoral tradition. These poems record the less aesthetic details of urban noise and filth surrounding the daily preparations of industrialized London rather than idealizing the dawn as a time of beauty, peace and renewal. While this strong similarity exists with almost a decade between publications, this does not constitute a ?cheap rip-off? on the part of Robinson, regardless of her allusion to line seven in Swift?s poem. Poets have often shared common interest and observations of their mutual societal surroundings and have engaged in discourse with each other over time through the poetic craft. Robinson?s engagement with the subject matter of Swift?s poem, as well as her own surroundings, is no less valuable than Dryden?s allusions to Greek mythology in order to reference the common social shorthand of understanding.?

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My friend Erin keeps a blog called Feed Your Head? in which she regularly?compiles random information. As I read this month’s update, I couldn’t help but think of?several of those wiley pre-romantic?poets.

… even though the average American moves 11 times in their lifetime, 61% will die in the same state in which they were born. Cheers to Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” and all those farmers who probably died in the same town as where they were born.

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