SOURCE: "The Languages of Gay's Trivia," Eighteenth-Century Life, Vol. X, No. 3, October, 1986, pp. 27-43.
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.
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