Anomalous Form and the Augustan Poet

Anomalous Form and the Augustan Poet: Imitation and its Discontents reconsiders the role of imitation in eighteenth-century English poetry. Dismissed by new historicists and cultural critics as a relic of an outmoded commitment to canonical masterpieces and cultural stability, imitation was central to Augustan poetic practice—yet in ways that complicate their own critical assertions. The proliferation of mock-forms, parody, paraphrase, and translation suggests that traditional generic distinctions are far from stable. These works seem to have sprung not from simple veneration for the ancient and elevated nor from simple scorn for the modern and low, but from a wild fascination with the possibility of writing as though such distinctions were inoperative, or unreal.

Imitation inspired fierce resistance from those, like Edward Young, determined to discover the sources of genius and originality. Yet Young's attack on imitation reveals that for all his special pleading on behalf of originality, he cannot imagine any way that the poet can escape the "soft fetters" of imitation. His quest for novelty divorced from established literary models resulted in bathos. This tension between the necessity for imitation and the seductions of genius is perhaps the most important ongoing debate amongst eighteenth-century poets. The volume explores how the imitation of both ancient and modern works results, often in surprising ways, in a new crop of original works that redefine our notions of genre and the "rules."