This volume is a study of how the poetry of Chaucer continued to give pleasure in the eighteenth century despite the immense linguistic, literary, and cultural shifts that had occurred in the intervening centuries. It explores translations and imitations of Chaucer's work by Dryden, Pope, and other poets (including Samuel Cobb, John Dart, Christopher Smart, Jane Brereton, William Wordsworth, and Leigh Hunt) from the early eighteenth to the early nineteenth centuries, as well as investigating the beginnings of modern Chaucer editing and biography. It pays particular attention to critical responses to Chaucer by Dryden and the brothers Warton, and includes a chapter on the oblique presence of Chaucer in Samuel Johnson's Dictionary. It explores the ways in which Chaucer's poetry (including several works now known not to be by him) was described, refashioned, reimagined, and understood several centuries after its initial appearance. It also documents the way that views of Chaucer's own character were inferred from his work. The book combines detailed discussion of particular critical and poetic texts, many of them unfamiliar to modern readers, with larger suggestions about the ways in which poetry of the past is received in the future.

About the Author
David Hopkins read Classics and English at Cambridge and wrote his PhD (on 'Dryden's Translations from Ovid') at the University of Leicester. He taught in the English Department at the University of Bristol from 1977, eventually becoming a Professor (now Emeritus) of English Literature. Most of his published work has been concerned with English poetry and literary criticism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and with the relations between English poetry and the Greek and Roman Classics. He is the author of books on Milton and Dryden, and co-editor of Dryden's poems and of the five-volume Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature. Tom Mason read English at Oxford and wrote his PhD at Cambridge. He taught in the English Department at the University of Bristol from 1978. Most of his published work has been concerned with English poetry and literary criticism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Reviews
This book makes an excellent contribution to studies of both Chaucerian reception and the eighteenth century. It is a fitting final work for Mason, who passed away shortly after its publication, and it will go on to enjoy an enduring 'second life' in future work on both these topics. * Katie Mennis, Translation and Literature *
This is a deeply significant new work, which both crystallises and establishes a much-overlooked field of Chaucerian reception and provides an invaluable resource for future scholars of the subject. * Archiv fur das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen, 260:2 *
Chaucer in the Eighteenth Century is an important, even essential, book. * A. W. Lee, The Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer *



Book Information
ISBN 9780192862624
Author David Hopkins
Format Hardback
Page Count 464
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 856g
Dimensions(mm) 240mm * 165mm * 36mm