Author: DYER (John):
Title: Poems. Viz. I. Grongar Hill. II. The Ruins of Rome. III. The Fleece, in Four Books.
Description: London: Printed by John Hughs For Messrs. R. and J. Dodsley..., 1761. FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. [vi], 9 - 188, 3 full-page engraved plates, D3 signed D2, contemporary calf, gilt spine, morocco label; upper and lower front joint slightly cracked, but a very good copy. Writing to Sir David Dalrymple on 3 February 1760, Horace Walpole remarked that he regarded "The Fleece" as a "very insipid poem.... I could never get through [it]." Dr. Johnson echoed his sentiments: "The subject, Sir, cannot be made poetical. How can a man write poetically of serges and druggets?" A more sympathetic modern critic describes it as "one of the most interesting of the formal georgics.... The aim of all this effort was to show the work as part of a larger pattern, natural or moral. It may seem ridiculous, or even objectionable, that poets should have felt a need to dignify labour in this way. But where have we a comparable poetry of turbines or nuclear reactors? Eighteenth-century georgics served a valuable function by combining poetical pleasure with enough information to allow intelligent readers to take an interest in manufacture and trade, and enter into their aims with patriotic enthusiasm" (Alastair Fowler: A History of English Literature [1987]).

Keywords: pastoral poetry literature


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