Reinterpretations

First published in 1971, Reinterpretations focusses upon a group of closely related major poems—L’Allegro and Il Penseroso, Milton’s companion pieces, and Lycidas, Pope’s Rape of the Lock and Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot, and Johnson’s London. The critical and interpretive light which Professor Hardy brings to bear on these works constitutes a considerable reinterpretation which informs our understanding of seventeenth and eighteenth century English poetry.

In the individual essays, Professor Hardy suggests that the real theme of Milton’s companion poems has gone unrecognized, and that not only has Lycidas a clear structural unity, but the final, effective statement of its theme depends on a realization of how this unity is achieved. He argues that current interpretations of Pope’s beautiful heroine are generally too limiting, especially in ignoring the wit of the Rape’s overall conception, and that the Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot, far from being a mere collection of brilliant passages, has a structure skilfully articulated in terms of its individual theme. Finally, he demonstrates that Johnson’s reworking of Juvenal’s famous third satire has, as its central structural metaphor implies, an original and essentially political theme. This book will be a beneficial read for students and researchers of English literature.