The Complaint (Masterplots, Definitive Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Edward Young
- Type of Work: Philosophical poetry
- Genres: Poetry, Elegy
- Subjects: Immortality, England or English people, Eighteenth century, Christianity, Death or dying, Mortality, Cemeteries
Critical Evaluation:
NIGHT THOUGHTS, as it is best known, belongs to the long and rich tradition of Graveyard Poetry which received some of its original impulses or boosts through Sir Richard Steele’s TATLER Number 89 and Milton’s IL PENSEROSO. Steele affirmed that the “proper Delight of Men of Knowledge and Virtue” is “that calm and elegant satisfaction which the vulgar call Melancholy.” Milton had agreed, hailing “divinest Melancholy,” “whose saintly visage” is “O’erlaid with black, staid Wisdom’s hue.” Enough such mortuary...
[The entire page is 1207 words long]
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