The most characteristic work of the English poet William Cowper (1731-1800) is gentle and pious in mood and deals with retired rural life. He often anticipated the attitudes and subjects of romantic a...
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William Cowper's letters are renowned for their seemingly effortless spontaneity. He once asked his young friend William Unwin: "If a Man may Talk without thinking, why may he not Write upon the same ...
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William Cowper was the foremost poet of the generation between Alexander Pope and William Wordsworth and for several decades had probably the largest readership of any English poet. From 1782, when ...
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In the following essay, Macdonald compares the antislavery poetry of William Cowper and William Blake to highlight the differences in pre-Romantic and Romantic literary strategies.
Most historians ...
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In the following excerpt, Fausset explores the nuances of Cowper's letters.
Letter-writing, as an art, is subject to the same conditions as any other art. Ideally a letter must in every phra...
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In the following essay, Elfenbein analyzes Cowper's treatment of femininity in The Task.
The poetry of William Cowper, especially his most famous poem, The Task, both encapsulates the develo...
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In the following essay, Terry examines Cowper's mock-heroic poems, arguing that they are often allegories for providentialism. He also situates Cowper between the Augustans and the Romantics.
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In the following essay, O’Brien explores Cowper's interest in politics, particularly in British Imperialism.
Questions of William Cowper's sense of empire are like those of his...
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In the following essay, Hartley describes Cowper's view of education, arguing that although Cowper's ideas are based mainly on religion, they can still serve as general suggestions on th...
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In the following essay, Golden explores the symbolism in Cowper's poetry in an attempt to uncover the poet's attitudes about himself.
Cowper has been pictured variously as a friendly ...
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In the following essay, Free offers a comprehensive analysis of Cowper's shorter poems, demonstrating that a sense of control, and reference to external objects as markers of internal states ar...
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In the following essay, Feingold analyzes The Task, focusing on its public aspects.
The idiosyncrasies of William Cowper's poetic career create an obvious difficulty for a study dealing with...
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In the following excerpt, Newey examines the moral content of Cowper's satires and compares them to the poet's freer style in Retirement.
Table Talk, which comes first in the volume o...
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In the following essay, King details Cowper's experience of translating Homer's Illiad and Odyssey.
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Cowper's translation into English blank verse of the Iliad and Odyssey was...
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In the following essay, King outlines some factors contributing to the final structure of The Task. He cites various social movements of the time and compares Cowper to Laurence Sterne.
At the time...
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In the following excerpt, originally published in 1841, Hazlitt disparages the excessive effeminacy and polish of Cowper's poetry, while praising the merits of elegance, satire, and pathos in h...
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In the following essay, Griffin views The Task as an eighteenth-century modification of the classical Georgic poetic form, while arguing that it depicts a more privatized and spiritualized conception ...
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In the following essay, Faulkner focuses on Cowper's expressions of British Imperialist ideology—and its inherent ambivalence—in his poetic works.
Cowper's ‘Boadi...
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In the following essay, Terry analyzes the sources, technique, subject matter, and style of Cowper's mock-heroic poetry, linking these with the poet's belief in Evangelical providentiali...
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In the following essay, Heller interprets The Task as Cowper's effort to sublimate his personal belief that he was spiritually condemned into a poetic manifestation of God's approval.
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In the following essay, O'Brien probes Cowper's juxtaposition of private and public concerns, and his moral focus on the still, small, quiet and humble in The Task.
Questions of Willi...
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In the following essay, MacLean presents an overview of Cowper's life and writings, suggesting that “neurotic terror” principally informs his poetry and other works.
Everyone k...
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In the following essay, Golden surveys the myriad ways in which Cowper's mental attitudes and instabilities—including feelings of isolation, delusion, victimization, abandonment, despair...
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In the following essay, Baird clarifies Cowper's representation of divine truth in the poems “The Progress of Error” and “Truth.”
William Cowper's poetical...
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In the following excerpt, Feingold evaluates The Task as a public poem, examining the work's principal themes and the dynamics of its social critique.
The idiosyncrasies of William Cowper&#x...
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In the following essay, Marshall argues that the loss of contact with the Word of God in the modern city is the central and unifying theme of The Task.
Throughout his poetic career, William Cowper ...
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In the following essay, Elfenbein follows Cowper's “revalorization of the feminine” in The Task, a process of poetically elevating femininity from a subordinate position relative ...
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In the following essay, Hutchings evaluates Cowper as a political poet, especially in his responses to the French Revolution.
If a reader hopes that William Cowper's poem, ‘Annus Mira...
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William Cowper
William Cowper
Critical Essay by D. L. Macdonald
