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 Barnstaple, Devonshire. Orphaned at age 10, he was...

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 of the wittiest and most influential writers, poets,...

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, indisputably, and deserves the acclaim it enjoys;...

Free to a good home: vintage submarine, recently restored. One prior owner.That's not quite how the notice is worded, but that's the message from the Navy, which is looking for someone to take over the USS Dolphin, one of the oldest submarines in its fleet.The...

A U.S. Navy sailor shot and killed two female sailors early Monday in the barracks an American military base in Bahrain, officials said.The alleged shooter, a man, was critically wounded in the shooting at the U.S. Naval Support Activity Bahrain base, said a Navy official...

Pirates freed a Japanese chemical tanker loaded with highly explosive benzene off the coast of Somalia Wednesday, six weeks after seizing the vessel and its crew, a U.S. Navy spokesman said.All 22 crew members were unhurt and the pirates were seen heading toward the Somali...

Two Somali pirates accused of hijacking a Japanese tanker have been arrested in northeastern Somalia, but up to a dozen more were still on the run, police said Thursday.The chemical tanker Golden Nori, seized off the Somali coast six weeks ago, was released Wednesday along...

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 classical antecedents, but to Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar and his peer Pope's pastorals, including "Windsor Forest." Forsgren maintains that the period of peace following the treaty of Utrecht during the reign of the Stuart Queen Anne was an important influence in the revival ...

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 concludes that while Gay was not necessarily 'feminist," his work nonetheless reflects the voice of the oppressed.

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 that despite its pointed satire, the poem's mock tone makes possible an overall sense of positivity about the dynamic nature of city life.