Bibliography

Price, Cecil. "Gay, Goldsmith, Sheridan, and Other Eighteenth-Century Dramatists." In English Drama (excluding Shakespeare). Select Bibliographical Guides, edited by Stanley Wells, pp. 199-212. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975.

Bibliographic essay provides a short overview of earlier works on Gay; includes citations for general reference.

Biographies

Dearing, Vinton A. "The Life of Gay." In his John Gay: Poetry and Prose, pp. 1-16. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974.

Dearing follows Gay's literary and court career, connecting events in his personal life to the works he was writing when they occurred.

Irving, William Henry. John Gay: Favorite of the Wits. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1940, 317 p.

The first important modern biography of Gay. Attempts to distance Gay from his earlier reputation as a second-class writer.

Melville, Lewis [pseudonym for Benjamin, Lewis S.]. Life and Letters of John Gay (1685-1732), Author of "The Beggar's Opera." London: Daniel O'Connor, 1921, 163 P.

This biography of Gay focuses on his friendships with Swift and Pope and his relationship with various ladies at court, in the context of his major works.

Nokes, David. John Gay: A Profession of Friendship. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995, 553 p.

Examines Gay's life and works in the context of his culture and in light of late-twentieth-century developments in literary criticism. Advances the hypothesis that Gay was homosexual.

Underhill, John. "Introductory Memoir." In his Poems of John Gay, pp. xi-lxix. London: George Routledge and Sons, 1893.

Reflects the nineteenth-century view of Gay as lazy, unrealistic, and only moderately talented.

Warner, Oliver. John Gay. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1964, 40 p.

A brief biography focusing on Gay's literary career; maintains the notion that Gay was undisciplined and his artistic output uneven at best.

Criticism

Bender, John. "The Novel and the Rise of the Penitentiary: Narrative and Ideology in Defoe, Gay, Hogarth, and Fielding." Stanford Literature Review 1, No. I (Spring 1984): 55-84.

Discusses Gay's depiction of Newgate prison in the context of legal and social developments of the eighteenth century.

Burgess, C. F. "Political Satire: John Gay's The Beggar's Opera." The Midwest Quarterly 6, No. 3 (April 1965): 265-76.

Argues that Gay attacks Walpole in his depiction of the unethical merchant Peachum, and suggests that Macheath represents George II.

——. Introduction to The Letters of John Gay. Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1966, pp. xi-xxiv.

Provides a brief introduction to Gay as revealed through his letters.

Forsgren, Adina. "Some Complimentary Epistles by John Gay." Studia Neophilologica 36, No. 1 (1964): 82-100.

Discusses Gay's adaptation of both classical and contemporary models of epistles, especially those of Horace.

——. "Lofty Genii and Low Ghosts. Vision Poems and John Gay's 'True Story of an Apparition.'" Studia Neophilologica 40, No. 1 (1968): 197-215.

Argues that Gay's poem was a Scriblerian response to Whig versions of history.

Fuller, John. "Introduction." In his John Gay: Dramatic Works, pp. 1-76. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983.

Provides a substantive overview of Gay's dramatic career, demonstrating the development of his social criticism and his experimentalism.

Klein, J. T. "Satire in a New Key: The Dramatic Function of the Lyrics of The Beggar's Opera." Michigan Academician 9, No. 3 (Winter 1977): 313-21.

Suggests that the ballads of The Beggar's Opera do not serve to advance the plot but to provide the play's moral commentary.

Lewis, Peter Elfed. "Gay's Burlesque Method in The What D'ye Call It." Durham University Journal 60, No. 1 (December 1967): 13-25.

Considers Gay's farce as part of the development of the dramatic burlesque genre, concluding that the play was an important artistic achievement for Gay.

——. "John Gay's 'Achilles': The Burlesque Element." Ariel 3, No. I (January 1972): 17-28.

Interprets Gay's play as an effective attack on Italian opera and heroic drama, despite its dramatic weaknesses.

——. "The Beaux' Stratagem and The Beggar's Opera." Notes and Queries 28, No. 3 (June 1981): 221-24.

Claims that Gay drew from George Farquhar's 1707 comedy in writing The Beggar's Opera.

Preston, John. "The Ironic Mode: A Comparison of Jonathan Wild and The Beggar's Opera." Essays in Criticism 16, No. 3 (July 1966): 268-80.

Draws parallels between Henry Fielding's satiric method in his earliest novel and Gay's depiction of Macheath in his Opera.

Rees, Christine. "Gay, Swift, and the Nymphs of Drury Lane." Essays in Criticism 23, No. I (January 1973) 1-21.

Focuses on Swift's and Gay's depiction of women in the context of the Augustan conflict between Art and Nature.

Teske, Charles B. "Gay's' 'Twas When the Seas Were Roaring' "and the Rise of Pathetic Balladry." Anglia 83 (1965): 411-25.

Examines Gay's ballad in its original setting, his farcical The What D'Ye Call It, to contradict its reputation as a serious sentimental art song.

Wiggins, Gene. "The Uneasy Swain: Folklore in John Gay." Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin 66, No. 3 (September 1980): 45-62.

Reviews Gay's use of folklore to conclude that the poet worked to conceal the extent of his knowledge with a pretense of satirical sophistication.