thou Trivia, Goddess, aid my Song,
Thro' spacious Streets conduct thy Bard along:
By thee transported, I securely stray
Where winding Alleys lead the doubtful Way,
The silent Court, and op'ning Square explore,
And long perplexing Lanes untrod before.
    (from Trivia, Or, the Art of Walking the Streets of London)

John Gay (1685-1732) was part of the 'association of wits' that included Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift. But though Gay's exposure of weakness and folly is no less acute than theirs, his wit is characterised by a benign and ironic sense of the fallibility of humankind. Gay is a great master of parody and pastiche, and the quality of Gay's poetry, as Marcus Walsh points out in his introduction, lies in its 'sense of verbal play'. The ironic appreciation of 'life as it is' that makes his Beggar's Opera enduringly popular is present in his poetry. Trivia, which Gay's biographer called 'the greatest poem on London in English literature', teems with the chaotic energy of the eighteenth-century city, while The Shepherd's Week is a pastoral of comic realism. This selection enables Gay's poetry to take its place alongside his drama as one of the most distinctive reflections of his age.

Table of Contents

Introduction - Marcus Walsh

Chronology of Life and Works - Marcus Walsh

Select Booklist - Marcus Walsh



Wine

    The Shepherd's Week
The Proeme

Monday; or, the Squabble

Wedmesday; or, The Dumps

Saturday; or, The flights

    Trivia
Book I

Book III

    Eclogues
The Birth of the Squire

The Tea-Table

    Fables 1727

Introduction to the Fables - Marcus Walsh

Fable X: the Elephant and the Buttleflies

Fable XXIV: The Butterfly and the Snail

Fable XXIX: The Fox at the Point of Death

Fable XXXIX: The Father and Jupiter

Fable XL:The Two Monkeys

Fable XLII: The Jugglers

Fable L: The Hare and Many Friends



     Fables, 1738

Fable I: The Dog and the Fox

Fable II: the Vultur, the Sparrow, and other Birds

Fable XVI: The Ravens, the Sexton, and the Earth-Worm

My Own Epitaph



Notes - Marcus Walsh