Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Pope and the syntax of satire
- 2 The politics of style
- 3 Form and pattern in the Pastorals
- 4 Windsor-Forest, Britannia and river poetry
- 5 Faery lore and The Rape of the Lock
- 6 Timon's Villa and Chatsworth
- 7 A drama of mixed feelings: the Epistle to Arbuthnot
- 8 The name and nature of Dulness: proper nouns in The Dunciad
- 9 Pope and the social scene
- 10 Blacks and poetry and Pope
- 11 The case of Pope v. Curll
- 12 Pope and his subscribers
- 13 The Burlington circle in the provinces: Pope's Yorkshire friends
- 14 Pope and the antiquarians
- Index
10 - Blacks and poetry and Pope
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Pope and the syntax of satire
- 2 The politics of style
- 3 Form and pattern in the Pastorals
- 4 Windsor-Forest, Britannia and river poetry
- 5 Faery lore and The Rape of the Lock
- 6 Timon's Villa and Chatsworth
- 7 A drama of mixed feelings: the Epistle to Arbuthnot
- 8 The name and nature of Dulness: proper nouns in The Dunciad
- 9 Pope and the social scene
- 10 Blacks and poetry and Pope
- 11 The case of Pope v. Curll
- 12 Pope and his subscribers
- 13 The Burlington circle in the provinces: Pope's Yorkshire friends
- 14 Pope and the antiquarians
- Index
Summary
In the early 1970s Mr E. P. Thompson and I independently hit on material relating to the Berkshire Blacks, who were active around 1722–3. This showed that Alexander Pope's brother-in-law, Charles Rackett, and the latter's son Michael were in some way implicated in deer-stealing in Windsor Forest. Charles was taken into custody, whilst Michael seemingly absconded. Mr Thompson planned a ful-length book on the episode of history leading to the Waltham Black Act of 1723; I planned merely an article. The result was that I published my findings first, having permitted Mr Thompson to see them in advance of publication. My brief article on the Pope connection appeared in the Times Literary Supplement on 31 August 1973, and Mr Thompson's reply on 7 September. Subsequently my wider discussion of the Black Act appeared in the Historical Journal during 1974. Mr Thompson's book Whigs and Hunters followed in 1975: again he had seen the typescript of my article in advance. Whigs and Hunters was published in a paperback in 1977, with some additional material at the end.
The substance of Mr Thompson's TLS article was reprinted as an appendix in both editions of Whigs and Hunters. It has therefore now reached a wide audience, including a majority of readers who in the nature of things will not have read my own contributions to the debate. I refrained from any response to this widely disseminated material, for a number of reasons. First, there is little disagreement between Mr Thompson and myself on the facts: his fuller enquiries yielded information I had not come across, but it would not have affected my basic judgments.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Essays on Pope , pp. 168 - 183Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993