Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub
[graphic]

YALE STUDIES IN ENGLISH
ALBERT S. COOK, EDITOR

LXXV

THE LIFE AND WORKS OF

EDWARD MOORE

BY

JOHN HOMER CASKEY

A Dissertation presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School
of Yale University in Candidacy for the Degree of

[blocks in formation]

2224

-Y2
v.75

STATE OIHO

PREFACE

'Mr. Moore was a poet that never had justice done him while living; there are few of the moderns have a more correct taste, or a more pleasing manner of expressing their thoughts.' Goldsmith wrote these words in 1767, in the preface to his Beauties of English Poetry. The present work is an attempt to atone for the neglect of a century and a half. Justice has never been done Edward Moore.

My first aim has been to give a unified view of all the achievements of a man who has been often mentioned as a dramatist by those who had little knowledge of his essays, or praised as a fabulist and poet by men who had not read his dramas. The only earlier attempt to get such a view was made by Beyer in his Edward Moore, sein Leben und seine Dramatischen Werke. That work, however, placed the emphasis upon a study of the sources of Moore's dramas, and treated his other works very briefly in the account of his life.

The study of single works has resulted in a misconception of Moore, usually an underestimation, which I have endeavored to correct. He has been unknown as an individual; in studies of the various works, those qualities have been magnified which were important for the history of a type or genre. His versatility has been accepted as a fact, but it has not been really appreciated.

A third purpose has been to provide another of the many studies of men of the eighteenth century which are needed to round out knowledge of a period long neglected. Moore was the associate of many prominent men. Garrick's friendship with Moore, for example, has here been discussed at length, since it has received only casual mention elsewhere.

For aid in the completion of this study, begun in 1916, interrupted by the war, carried on in England in 1919, and in New Haven in 1921-1922, and finally completed in

337702

« PoprzedniaDalej »