Mapping a Century of British Poetry and Reassessing Two of Its Poets

Abstract

What does it mean to be a "companion" to a literary period? And what can the first collections of essays on two arguably minor poets accomplish? Eighteenth-century British poetry is typically overlooked in undergraduate survey courses, except perhaps for a few samples of Pope, and such poets as Thomson and Smart are represented in major anthologies only by a few snippets of much longer [End Page 115] poems. An ideal "companion" would be a Baedeker or vade mecum for advanced students who are continuing to learn what makes a literary period cohere, that would still appeal to academics who need an overview of its recent, ongoing critical interests. A collection of essays by several hands on a single author should provide sufficient rationale for the attention it bestows, typically the reconsideration of the author's status, or new critical, methodological, and theoretical insights. Given these criteria, all three books under review possess great merits, and several essays stand out as models of historically based overviews, literary analysis, or contextualization. On the other hand, it is worth examining each book as a whole to determine whether it meets its aims. While the Cambridge Companion raises unanswered questions about the designation of "the eighteenth century" as a coherent historical period, the two collections of essays are often most convincing when making a case for their authors' broader significance—their cultural influence on later writers or their involvement in historical crises of authorship—rather than the aesthetic value of their works per se.