The Art of Sinking in Poetry

(Paperback)

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Written in 1727, The Art of Sinking in Poetry was one of Alexander Popes contributions to the literary output of the legendary Scriblerus club a circle of writers dedicated to mocking what they perceived as a culture of mediocrity and false learning prevalent in the arts and sciences of their day. Taking the form of an ironic guide to writing bad verse, Popes tongue-in-cheek essay is wickedly funny in its lampooning of various pompous poetasters, as well as being essential reading for any budding writer wishing to avoid sinking to the unintentionally ridiculous, and instead reach for the sublime.

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As the sublime was becoming fashionable, Alexander Pope produced a brilliant guide to this tendency, his Art of Sinking in Poetry. It was a compendium of the failed sublimities of other poets, many of them contemporaries, and it introduced the word bathos to the English language. * The Guardian *

Author Bio

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) was the pre-eminent poet of his day, and is most famous for his mockheroic poem The Rape of the Lock. With John Gay, Jonathan Swift and John Arbuthnot, he formed the Scriblerus Club