The Distrest Poet
Encyclopedia
The Distrest Poet is an oil painting
produced sometime around 1736 by the British artist William Hogarth
. Reproduced as an etching
and engraving
, it was published in 1741 from a third state plate produced in 1740. The scene was probably inspired by Alexander Pope
's satirical
poem The Dunciad
. It depicts a scene in a small, dingy attic room where a poet sits at his desk in the dormer and, scratching his head, stares at the papers on the desk before him, evidently looking for inspiration to complete the poem he is writing. Near him sits his wife darning clothes, surprised by the entrance of a milkmaid, who impatiently demands payment of debts.
The engraving of The Distrest Poet in its third state was issued on 15 December 1741 as a companion piece to The Enraged Musician
, a comic scene of a violinist driven to distraction by the noise from the street outside his practice room. The initial plate for The Distrest Poet was produced soon after Hogarth had completed the oil painting, but the third state plate was not completed until late in 1740 at which time Hogarth advertised his intention to issue a three-image set: The Provok'd Musician, The Distrest Poet, and a third image on the subject of "Painting". The Provok'd Musician (renamed The Enraged Musician) was produced in 1741 but the third image was never completed.
The scene is set in a small and messy garret
, sparsely furnished by a few pieces of crude furniture. The room is poorly kept, with cracking plaster, a broken window and uneven floor, and a bare cupboard. In this way, Hogarth underlines the desperate circumstances of the occupants and the poverty of the family.
Starved of inspiration and suffering writer's block
, the poet sits on the end of his bed in his night gown, quill in hand, scratching his head. A copy of Edward Bysshe's The Art of English Poetry, a guide to composition published in 1702, lies open on the table. A copy of Popes's satirical Grub Street Journal
lies on the floor near his feet.
A few feet to his right sits his wife, darning the clothes on her lap and those sprawled on the floor, while a crying infant, who is upset and hungry, goes unattended in the only bed. Next to the poet's wife, by the open door, an angry milkmaid presents her substantial bill, demanding payment for milk, underlining the poet's refusal to provide for his family by getting himself a proper job. The cupboard stands open and empty, save for a mouse; near the door, a dog steals the last of the family's food from a plate.
Other, less obvious, elements of the painting reveal more about the poet's personality and ideas. The poem he is attempting to write is entitled "Upon Riches", which suggests that the poet lives in a fantasy world, while his wife and child go hungry. Ned Ward's first published poem in 1691 was The Poet's Ramble After Riches, which satirised his own struggles as an impoverished aspiring poet, and Hogarth may have had this in mind when he produced the picture. Earlier impressions showed the poem as "Poverty, A Poem", which hinted at a connection to Theobald who had written "The Cave of Poverty, A Poem, Written in Imitation of Shakespeare" in 1714. The poet's dreams of riches are further suggested by the map that hangs over his head, entitled "A View of the Gold Mines of Peru", replacing the image of Pope that appears in the earlier states of the print. The poet's self-interest is hinted by the presence of his pipe and tobacco on the window sill, the mug of beer sitting on the chair in the back of the room, the lace cuffs drying by the fire, his ill-fitting wig, and gentleman's sword lying at his feet; it may be that despite his family's circumstances, he refuses to forgo his own personal pleasures and effects. Alternatively, his fantasy of earning a fortune from his art may require that he keeps his gentlemanly accoutrements around him, as they will be required when his fantasies are realised.
The scene shown in The Distrest Poet was probably inspired by Alexander Pope
's satirical poem The Dunciad
, most likely by the prefatory matter of the second version, the Dunciad Variorum which had been published in 1735, and in which Pope confirmed his authorship of the original. The painting and early states of the print included a quotation from Pope's work:
The bill stuck to the wall above the poet's head originally featured a reference to Pope in which he was punningly mocked as "His Holiness Pope Alexander", depicted as an ape wearing a papal tiara
with an ass as his Prime Minister. The initial states of the print kept the quotation but replaced the genuine bill with a representation (which appears to have been entirely invented by Hogarth rather than copied from a real bill) of Pope clashing with Edmund Curll
over the unauthorized publication of the poet's correspondence. Although Hogarth and Pope had never met, this literary inspiration led to speculation as to the identity of Hogarth's poet as one of the targets of Pope's satire. Ned Ward
, the author of The London Spy
was a strong contender, as was Lewis Theobald
, to whom the lines quoted from Pope in Hogarth's original print referred.
How far Hogarth sympathized with Pope is questionable. The original bill mocked him, but it featured in an image that, at the least, poked fun at the poor poet who was the subject. Hogarth may have been suggesting either that poet was showing contempt for Pope or that he placed Pope's image above his head as a model to which to aspire. In the second image, which shows Pope and Curll locked in battle, it is not clear who has the upper hand, and by the time the print was issued the direct reference to Pope had been removed completely. Ronald Paulson
, the preeminent modern authority on Hogarth, suggests that Hogarth would have viewed Pope, through his Roman Catholicism, as having been implicitly tied to the continental influences that Hogarth despised, and would have seen Pope's refusal to accept the patronage of the great men of the time, while still cultivating them as friends and still reaping the rewards they had to offer, as hypocritical . Pope was part of the circle that included William Kent
and Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington
who had displaced Hogarth's father-in-law James Thornhill
from commissions, and Hogarth also had ties to Lewis Theobald, a possible target of the satire, through illustrations he had produced for Theobald's Perseus and Andromeda, and through his subscription to Theobald's edition of the works of Shakespeare
. Paulson suggests that the real "villain" of The Distrest Poet may be Pope, unseen but representing the successful "Great Poet" whom the deluded aspiring artist hopes to emulate, rather than the distressed poet himself. Hogarth had featured Pope picking John Gay
's pocket in the foreground of Emblematical Print on the South Sea Scheme
, an early print he had produced on the theme of the South Sea Bubble (both Pope and Gay had invested money in the scheme). At the same time, within the satire of the painting, the poet who is distressed is going to be one of Pope's dunce
s.
The lines by Pope, though referring to Theobald, the hero of The Dunciad, are a characterization of a Grub Street
hack, a stereotype popular in the 1730s denoting a man of limited writing ability who lived in poverty but nevertheless determinedly pursued a career in literature;, Therefore the particular scribbler depicted in the painting would be one of this fraternity of "witlings" who banded together to protest Pope's poem. In this context it would make sense, therefore, for the poet to have the scabrous anti-Pope print, or an emblem of Pope's fight with the hack writers' patron, above him. Just as Moll Hackabout has a picture of Macheath on her wall in A Harlot's Progress
, this aspiring and witless poet would have a picture of his hero, Edmund Curll, and an anti-Pope print. The emblem, in other words, identifies the poet's "side" in the battle between dunces and men of wit.
Hogarth was well acquainted with the struggles of the Grub Street hack though, through the travails of his own father, Richard, who had been unable to make a living as writer and had eventually ended up at the Fleet Prison
as a bankrupt. Hogarth may have been more than sympathetic to the dunce struggling with his rhymes. Jenny Uglow in her biography of Hogarth, posits that the gradual alteration of the prints above the poet's head could suggest a slow softening of attitudes towards Pope and his attack on the class of writer to which Hogarth's had father belonged, and perhaps evidence of Hogarth making his own compromises in his endeavours to become successful.
Oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...
produced sometime around 1736 by the British artist William Hogarth
William Hogarth
William Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects"...
. Reproduced as an etching
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
and engraving
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
, it was published in 1741 from a third state plate produced in 1740. The scene was probably inspired by Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
's satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
poem The Dunciad
The Dunciad
The Dunciad is a landmark literary satire by Alexander Pope published in three different versions at different times. The first version was published in 1728 anonymously. The second version, the Dunciad Variorum was published anonymously in 1729. The New Dunciad, in four books and with a...
. It depicts a scene in a small, dingy attic room where a poet sits at his desk in the dormer and, scratching his head, stares at the papers on the desk before him, evidently looking for inspiration to complete the poem he is writing. Near him sits his wife darning clothes, surprised by the entrance of a milkmaid, who impatiently demands payment of debts.
Background
The Enraged Musician
The Enraged Musician is a 1741 etching and engraving by English artist William Hogarth which depicts a comic scene of a violinist driven to distraction by the cacophony outside his window...
, a comic scene of a violinist driven to distraction by the noise from the street outside his practice room. The initial plate for The Distrest Poet was produced soon after Hogarth had completed the oil painting, but the third state plate was not completed until late in 1740 at which time Hogarth advertised his intention to issue a three-image set: The Provok'd Musician, The Distrest Poet, and a third image on the subject of "Painting". The Provok'd Musician (renamed The Enraged Musician) was produced in 1741 but the third image was never completed.
Picture
Garret
A garret is generally synonymous in modern usage with a habitable attic or small living space at the top of a house. It entered Middle English via Old French with a military connotation of a watchtower or something akin to a garrison, in other words a place for guards or soldiers to be quartered...
, sparsely furnished by a few pieces of crude furniture. The room is poorly kept, with cracking plaster, a broken window and uneven floor, and a bare cupboard. In this way, Hogarth underlines the desperate circumstances of the occupants and the poverty of the family.
Starved of inspiration and suffering writer's block
Writer's block
Writer's block is a condition, primarily associated with writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work. The condition varies widely in intensity. It can be trivial, a temporary difficulty in dealing with the task at hand. At the other extreme, some "blocked"...
, the poet sits on the end of his bed in his night gown, quill in hand, scratching his head. A copy of Edward Bysshe's The Art of English Poetry, a guide to composition published in 1702, lies open on the table. A copy of Popes's satirical Grub Street Journal
Grub Street Journal
Published from January 8, 1730 to 1738, The Grub-Street Journal was a satire on popular journalism and hack-writing as it was conducted in Grub Street in London. It was largely edited by Richard Russel and the botanist John Martyn...
lies on the floor near his feet.
A few feet to his right sits his wife, darning the clothes on her lap and those sprawled on the floor, while a crying infant, who is upset and hungry, goes unattended in the only bed. Next to the poet's wife, by the open door, an angry milkmaid presents her substantial bill, demanding payment for milk, underlining the poet's refusal to provide for his family by getting himself a proper job. The cupboard stands open and empty, save for a mouse; near the door, a dog steals the last of the family's food from a plate.
Other, less obvious, elements of the painting reveal more about the poet's personality and ideas. The poem he is attempting to write is entitled "Upon Riches", which suggests that the poet lives in a fantasy world, while his wife and child go hungry. Ned Ward's first published poem in 1691 was The Poet's Ramble After Riches, which satirised his own struggles as an impoverished aspiring poet, and Hogarth may have had this in mind when he produced the picture. Earlier impressions showed the poem as "Poverty, A Poem", which hinted at a connection to Theobald who had written "The Cave of Poverty, A Poem, Written in Imitation of Shakespeare" in 1714. The poet's dreams of riches are further suggested by the map that hangs over his head, entitled "A View of the Gold Mines of Peru", replacing the image of Pope that appears in the earlier states of the print. The poet's self-interest is hinted by the presence of his pipe and tobacco on the window sill, the mug of beer sitting on the chair in the back of the room, the lace cuffs drying by the fire, his ill-fitting wig, and gentleman's sword lying at his feet; it may be that despite his family's circumstances, he refuses to forgo his own personal pleasures and effects. Alternatively, his fantasy of earning a fortune from his art may require that he keeps his gentlemanly accoutrements around him, as they will be required when his fantasies are realised.
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
's satirical poem The Dunciad
The Dunciad
The Dunciad is a landmark literary satire by Alexander Pope published in three different versions at different times. The first version was published in 1728 anonymously. The second version, the Dunciad Variorum was published anonymously in 1729. The New Dunciad, in four books and with a...
, most likely by the prefatory matter of the second version, the Dunciad Variorum which had been published in 1735, and in which Pope confirmed his authorship of the original. The painting and early states of the print included a quotation from Pope's work:
The bill stuck to the wall above the poet's head originally featured a reference to Pope in which he was punningly mocked as "His Holiness Pope Alexander", depicted as an ape wearing a papal tiara
Papal Tiara
The Papal Tiara, also known incorrectly as the Triple Tiara, or in Latin as the Triregnum, in Italian as the Triregno and as the Trirègne in French, is the three-tiered jewelled papal crown, supposedly of Byzantine and Persian origin, that is a prominent symbol of the papacy...
with an ass as his Prime Minister. The initial states of the print kept the quotation but replaced the genuine bill with a representation (which appears to have been entirely invented by Hogarth rather than copied from a real bill) of Pope clashing with Edmund Curll
Edmund Curll
Edmund Curll was an English bookseller and publisher. His name has become synonymous, through the attacks on him by Alexander Pope, with unscrupulous publication and publicity. Curll rose from poverty to wealth through his publishing, and he did this by approaching book printing in a mercenary...
over the unauthorized publication of the poet's correspondence. Although Hogarth and Pope had never met, this literary inspiration led to speculation as to the identity of Hogarth's poet as one of the targets of Pope's satire. Ned Ward
Ned Ward
Ned Ward , also known as Edward Ward, was a satirical writer and publican in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century based in London, England. His most famous work is The London Spy. Published in 18 monthly instalments starting in November 1698 it was described as a "complete survey" of...
, the author of The London Spy
The London Spy
The London Spy by Ned Ward is a non-fiction book about London lowlife and vice published in 1703. The chapters are arranged topographically. The account is told in the first person by the author under the persona of 'The London Spy'....
was a strong contender, as was Lewis Theobald
Lewis Theobald
Lewis Theobald , British textual editor and author, was a landmark figure both in the history of Shakespearean editing and in literary satire...
, to whom the lines quoted from Pope in Hogarth's original print referred.
How far Hogarth sympathized with Pope is questionable. The original bill mocked him, but it featured in an image that, at the least, poked fun at the poor poet who was the subject. Hogarth may have been suggesting either that poet was showing contempt for Pope or that he placed Pope's image above his head as a model to which to aspire. In the second image, which shows Pope and Curll locked in battle, it is not clear who has the upper hand, and by the time the print was issued the direct reference to Pope had been removed completely. Ronald Paulson
Ronald Paulson
Ronald Paulson , is an American professor of English, a specialist in English 18th-century art and culture, and English artist William Hogarth.-Education:...
, the preeminent modern authority on Hogarth, suggests that Hogarth would have viewed Pope, through his Roman Catholicism, as having been implicitly tied to the continental influences that Hogarth despised, and would have seen Pope's refusal to accept the patronage of the great men of the time, while still cultivating them as friends and still reaping the rewards they had to offer, as hypocritical . Pope was part of the circle that included William Kent
William Kent
William Kent , born in Bridlington, Yorkshire, was an eminent English architect, landscape architect and furniture designer of the early 18th century.He was baptised as William Cant.-Education:...
and Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington
Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington
Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and 4th Earl of Cork PC , born in Yorkshire, England, was the son of Charles Boyle, 2nd Earl of Burlington and 3rd Earl of Cork...
who had displaced Hogarth's father-in-law James Thornhill
James Thornhill
Sir James Thornhill was an English painter of historical subjects, in the Italian baroque tradition.-Life:...
from commissions, and Hogarth also had ties to Lewis Theobald, a possible target of the satire, through illustrations he had produced for Theobald's Perseus and Andromeda, and through his subscription to Theobald's edition of the works of Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
. Paulson suggests that the real "villain" of The Distrest Poet may be Pope, unseen but representing the successful "Great Poet" whom the deluded aspiring artist hopes to emulate, rather than the distressed poet himself. Hogarth had featured Pope picking John Gay
John Gay
John Gay was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera , set to music by Johann Christoph Pepusch...
's pocket in the foreground of Emblematical Print on the South Sea Scheme
Emblematical Print on the South Sea Scheme
Emblematical Print on the South Sea Scheme is an early print by William Hogarth, created in 1721 and widely published from 1724. It caricatures the financial speculation, corruption and credulity that caused the South Sea Bubble in England in 1720–1.-Background:The South Sea Company was a British...
, an early print he had produced on the theme of the South Sea Bubble (both Pope and Gay had invested money in the scheme). At the same time, within the satire of the painting, the poet who is distressed is going to be one of Pope's dunce
Dunce
A dunce is a person incapable of learning.The word is derived from the name of the great Scholastic theologian and philosopher John Duns Scotus, also referred to as Doctor Subtillis, or "Subtle Doctor", whose works on logic, theology and philosophy were accepted textbooks in the universities from...
s.
The lines by Pope, though referring to Theobald, the hero of The Dunciad, are a characterization of a Grub Street
Grub Street
Until the early 19th century, Grub Street was a street close to London's impoverished Moorfields district that ran from Fore Street east of St Giles-without-Cripplegate north to Chiswell Street...
hack, a stereotype popular in the 1730s denoting a man of limited writing ability who lived in poverty but nevertheless determinedly pursued a career in literature;, Therefore the particular scribbler depicted in the painting would be one of this fraternity of "witlings" who banded together to protest Pope's poem. In this context it would make sense, therefore, for the poet to have the scabrous anti-Pope print, or an emblem of Pope's fight with the hack writers' patron, above him. Just as Moll Hackabout has a picture of Macheath on her wall in A Harlot's Progress
A Harlot's Progress
A Harlot's Progress is a series of six paintings and engravings by William Hogarth. The series shows the story of a young woman, Mary Hackabout, who arrives in London from the country and becomes a prostitute...
, this aspiring and witless poet would have a picture of his hero, Edmund Curll, and an anti-Pope print. The emblem, in other words, identifies the poet's "side" in the battle between dunces and men of wit.
Hogarth was well acquainted with the struggles of the Grub Street hack though, through the travails of his own father, Richard, who had been unable to make a living as writer and had eventually ended up at the Fleet Prison
Fleet Prison
Fleet Prison was a notorious London prison by the side of the Fleet River in London. The prison was built in 1197 and was in use until 1844. It was demolished in 1846.- History :...
as a bankrupt. Hogarth may have been more than sympathetic to the dunce struggling with his rhymes. Jenny Uglow in her biography of Hogarth, posits that the gradual alteration of the prints above the poet's head could suggest a slow softening of attitudes towards Pope and his attack on the class of writer to which Hogarth's had father belonged, and perhaps evidence of Hogarth making his own compromises in his endeavours to become successful.