‘Love was in the next Degree’: Lyric, Satire, and Inventive Modulation

Abstract

Taking ancient Greek lyric and its musical performance as a starting-point, this essay considers the creative potential of modulation, the skilful deploying of dynamic and tonal effects in poetry. It argues that poets of the period from 1660 to 1740 found in the Classical tradition a range of contrasting lyric modes that could be varied and combined in inventive ways. From this perspective it is also possible to appreciate how the period's satiric writing exploits the more flexible and responsive elements of the lyrist's skill, its modal creativity. In this period, lyric and satire are closer together than we might think.Hermes took the lyre on his left arm, and tried it out with the plectrum, part by part. At the touch of his hand, the lyre rang out with a tremendous sound, and Phoebus Apollo laughed with joy, for the lovely breath of its marvellous voice went through his heart, and sweet desire took hold of his spirit as he listened. Then Hermes was encouraged, and took his stand on the left side of Apollo, playing in lovely notes on the lyre. Soon, as he touched the piercing-toned strings, he began to utter speech in a prelude (lovely was the voice that attended him) [...] [Hermes] honoured the immortal gods in order of their age, telling how each came to be. All this he told in order, still playing the lyre held against his forearm, and Apollo's spirit in his chest was gripped by irresistible yearning. 1 These lines from the fourth of the ancient Homeric hymns give us a primal creative moment; but what specifically is being created here? The young god Hermes has been born that very day, and on leaving the cradle he has invented the lyre, and with it the art of lyric poetry. Apollo has been furious with the baby, who had earlier driven away his cattle (Hermes has had a busy first morning), but he is immediately won round by this new music, and the description of the lyric performance is as much about his delighted response to the sounds. The strings of the lyre are 'piercing-toned', and Apollo feels within himself an 'irresistible yearning' that affects him physically as well as temperamentally. The subject of the first ever lyric (the birth of the gods) is far from original, although it concerns the beginnings of things. 2 It is as if originality declares itself by recording origins, genuine creativity evokes the

Recent scholarship on classical literature and the eighteenth century

“…Such was Horace's centrality to the eighteenth century in a wide range of poetic modes, it would be more straightforward to list the writers who were active in the period who did not produce a translation or imitation of Horace instead of those who did. Most recent work on Horace has concentrated either on his status as a satirist or as a lyric poet; David Fairer (2011a) provides a rare consideration of the connections between the two genres. There have been discussions of the Horatianism of Pope (Haugen, 2019; Swidzinski, 2018), Swift (Cook, 2020, pp.…”