Peter,
"The Seasons" isn't in couplets? It's blank verse- Stylistically, it (at
least on the surface) is basically picking up from Milton; in terms of the
subject of the seasons, treated with only passing classical tropes rather
than stylized pastoral plan, is new, - He read all the up to date science
and revised the poem as new findings came out. But his up-to-the-minute
understanding is one reason why the work has "dated" - I mean, no longer
claims so much attention - , perhaps.
But quite possibly it would be better in couplets - the blank verse has a
dampening effect and one feels sometimes that Thomson wants to lift off from
it.
It's a very Whig poem, too, where Newton fuses effortlessly with the
spiritual notions of Lord Shaftesbury.
In terms of sales at the time, Thomson sold and sold, there were Thomson
books everywhere like Bibles for a hundred years or so, along with the
praise of Johnson, Cowper, Wordsworth, and begrudgingly Coleridge -
The Seasons, in Baron Gottfried van Swieten's translation, also form the
libretto for Haydn's 'Die Jahreszeiten. Also, Kenneth Koch wrote a homage
"The Seasons", in the city, "Pizza parlours open up..."
Edmund
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