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John Gay.
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The English playwright and poet John Gay (1685-1732) is best known for "The Beggar's Opera," a skillful blend of literary, political, social, and musical satire.John Gay was born on June 30, 1685, in ...
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John Gay's masterpiece, The Beggar's Opera, has so dominated the landscape of his subsequent reputation that many theatergoers are not aware he did anything else. The Beggar's Opera is a great work, i...
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Even if John Gay had never written his bestknown poems and plays--The Shepherd's Week (1714), Trivia (1716), Fables (1727), and The Beggar's Opera (1728)--we would know him through his friends, some o...
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In the following essay, Faber outlines his reasons for including or excluding several poems from his collection of Gay's work. His analysis of the problem of authorship offers a concise overvie...
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In the following essay, Ames makes a case for Gay's often-unrecognized skill with classical allusion, comparing his Trivia with John Dryden's translation of Virgil's Georgics. Ame...
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In the following essay, Beckwith considers the classical antecedents of Gay's Trivia, including Virgil's Georgics, to explicate Gay's "mock" effects. Beckwith finds ...
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In the following essay, Williams examines Gay's depictions of women in light of the works of other Scriblerians, especially Pope and Swift. Williams suggests that the unevenness of Gay's...
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In the following essay, Noble argues that Gay's later drama registers the paradoxical position of women in a patriarchal society, with an emphasis on contemporary constructions of rape. Noble c...
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In the following essay, Dugaw asserts that late-eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century notions of class and literary propriety led to a reluctance on the part of Gay's contemporaries to cons...
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In the following essay, Bond discusses the possible political biases revealed in Gay's review of the periodicals circulating in London coffeehouses of the early eighteenth century. With some at...
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In the following essay, Spacks considers the strengths and weaknesses of Gay's satiric efforts, concentrating on his satiric epistles and the Fables. Comparing Gay primarily to Pope, Spacks sug...
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In the following excerpt, Forsgren. examines Gay's pastoral poems in both their political and their literary contexts, discussing The Shepherd's Week's connections not only to cla...
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In the following excerpt, Spacks examines Gay's earliest poetry, demonstrating how the poet developed both his voice and his major artistic concerns. Although his early work is uneven, Spacks a...
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In the following essay, Battestin calls for a new understanding of Gay's use of the pastoral in his poetry, suggesting that Gay's skill with form and artifice reflect an Augustan aesthet...
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John Gay
John Gay
Critical Essay by G. C. Faber
