Template:Unreferenced The Scriblerus Club was an 18th-century English literary club best that included Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, John Gay, John Arbuthnot, Henry St. John and Thomas Parnell.
History[]
The Scriblerus Club (In Our Time)
The group was founded in 1712 and lasted until the death of the founders (starting in 1732 and ending in 1745), with Pope and Swift being the culturally most prominent authors. Robert Harley, 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer occasionally joined the club for meetings, though he is not known to have contributed to any of their literary work.
The club began as a project of satirizing the abuses of learning wherever they might be found, which led to The Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus. The 2nd edition of Pope's The Dunciad also contains work attributed to Martinus Scriblerus.
University of Toronto English professor Patricia C. Brückmann identifies the "common ideal" of the group as "the pastoral", and says they were motivated by "shared hostilities and anxieties regarding the erosion of that ideal in an age they saw as grotesquely degenerate." She adds that the group were mainly inspired by ancient authors such as "Erasmus and Sir Thomas More, who both figure as icons in the Scriblerians' work, as well as such authors as Seneca, Lucian, Lucius Apuleius, and François Rabelais."[1]
Legacy[]
Later writers influenced by the club include Henry Fielding, Lawrence Sterne, Vladimir Nabokov, John Barth, Robert Coover, and James Joyce.[1] Fielding wrote under the pen name "Scriblerus Secundus."
Recognition[]
In popular culture[]
Richard Owen Cambridge wrote a mock epic poem, the Scribleriad, where the hero is Martinus Scriblerus.
Henry Fielding's play, The Welsh Opera is presented as a tribute to the "Scriblerians".
See also[]
- List of poetry groups and movements
- 18th century in literature
- Augustan poetry
- 1712 in poetry
- 1745 in poetry
References[]
- Brückmann, Patricia C. A Manner of Correspondence: A study of the Scriblerus Club. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2014.
- Lewis, Peter, and Nigel Wood. John Gay and the Scriblerians. London: Vision, 1989.
- Marshall, Ashley. The Practice of Satire in England, 1658-1770. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013.
Notes[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 A Manner of Correspondence: A study of the Scriblerus Club, McGill-Queen's University Press. Web, Mar. 4, 2021.
External links[]
- About
- Scriblerus Club at the Encyclopædia Britannica
- The Scriblerus Club at the Literary Encyclopedia
- The Scriblerus Club at Website of Pascal Bonenfant
- A Manner of Correspondence: A study of the Scriblerus Club at McGill-Queen's University Press
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