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Windsor Forest
Windsor Forest
By Alexander Pope
Read by Denis Daly
Although most of Windsor Forest was written as early as 1704, it was not published until 1713. The poem was completed after the promulgation of the first peace treaty of Utrecht, which is alluded to in terms of approbation in the body of the poem:
"At length great Anna said,'Let discord cease!'
She said: the world obey'd; and all was peace."
The poem is a flattering tribute to the wise rule of Queen Anne and contains several references to the harsher regimes of earlier English monarchs. Pope draws a comparison between the transformation of an ugly waste into a glorious forest reserve and the progressive refinement of sovereign rule in England.
This recording concludes with "Lines to Mr Pope on his Poem of 'Windsor Forest'", an encomium by one Father Knapp, from the County of Mayo in Ireland.
Public Domain (P)2024 Voices of Today
By Alexander Pope
Read by Denis Daly
Although most of Windsor Forest was written as early as 1704, it was not published until 1713. The poem was completed after the promulgation of the first peace treaty of Utrecht, which is alluded to in terms of approbation in the body of the poem:
"At length great Anna said,'Let discord cease!'
She said: the world obey'd; and all was peace."
The poem is a flattering tribute to the wise rule of Queen Anne and contains several references to the harsher regimes of earlier English monarchs. Pope draws a comparison between the transformation of an ugly waste into a glorious forest reserve and the progressive refinement of sovereign rule in England.
This recording concludes with "Lines to Mr Pope on his Poem of 'Windsor Forest'", an encomium by one Father Knapp, from the County of Mayo in Ireland.
Public Domain (P)2024 Voices of Today
Audible Audio
First published January 1, 1713
33 people want to read
About the author
Alexander Pope
2,256 books694 followersPeople best remember
The Rape of the Lock
(1712) and
The Dunciad
(1728), satirical mock-epic poems of English writer Alexander Pope.
Ariel, a sylph, guards the heroine of The Rape of the Lock of Alexander Pope.
People generally regard Pope as the greatest of the 18th century and know his verse and his translation of Homer. After William Shakespeare and Alfred Tennyson, he ranks as third most frequently quoted in the language. Pope mastered the heroic couplet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexand...
Ariel, a sylph, guards the heroine of The Rape of the Lock of Alexander Pope.
People generally regard Pope as the greatest of the 18th century and know his verse and his translation of Homer. After William Shakespeare and Alfred Tennyson, he ranks as third most frequently quoted in the language. Pope mastered the heroic couplet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexand...
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 11, 2021
I detest the long 18th century as a literary epoch, but there is something fascinatingly delightful about Pope: the obvious, lavish desire to please and appeal and praise with rounded, architectural rhythms and formes undercut by an equally obvious subversiveness and bitterness and marginality. Really makes you reconsider what poetry is and how it should be read; I look forward to working on Windsor Forest
February 29, 2024
I liked this poem, the rhythm made it easy to read despite all the classical references that make it harder to understand. It didn't need to be as long as it was, but overall I didn't hate reading it.
June 10, 2021
i didi not like this kind of his works
just tow stars
just tow stars
September 21, 2022
one star because i needed a dictionary at all times
December 31, 2023
“‘Tis yours, my Lord, to bless our soft retreats,
And call the Muses to their ancient seats,
To paint anew the flow’ry sylvan scenes,
To crown the forests with immortal greens,
Make Windsor hills in lofty numbers rise,
And lift her turrets nearer to the skies;
To sing those honors you deserve to wear,
And add new luster to her silver star.”
Read for British Literature.
3.5 stars. I’m a sucker for flowery, romantic nature poetry. While this isn’t a nature poem in the traditional sense, it’s still a pastoral poem praising the land of Windsor Castle and England as a whole. I loved all of the divine and supernatural metaphors, especially since none of them were christian-based. I don’t quite understand the political commentary enough to speak on it, but the whole poem has a sense of glory and peace to it, so it didn’t feel out of place to me. Overall, very good poem! Much better than some other premodern poems I’ve read.
And call the Muses to their ancient seats,
To paint anew the flow’ry sylvan scenes,
To crown the forests with immortal greens,
Make Windsor hills in lofty numbers rise,
And lift her turrets nearer to the skies;
To sing those honors you deserve to wear,
And add new luster to her silver star.”
Read for British Literature.
3.5 stars. I’m a sucker for flowery, romantic nature poetry. While this isn’t a nature poem in the traditional sense, it’s still a pastoral poem praising the land of Windsor Castle and England as a whole. I loved all of the divine and supernatural metaphors, especially since none of them were christian-based. I don’t quite understand the political commentary enough to speak on it, but the whole poem has a sense of glory and peace to it, so it didn’t feel out of place to me. Overall, very good poem! Much better than some other premodern poems I’ve read.
March 21, 2023
As of this writing I see little literary value in this work. Sound like a poem I wrote in 5th grade. Yes I am salty that I just read over 400 lines of this.
January 31, 2025
no more Pope please i can't wait for the Romantics
March 20, 2025
no way my uni made me read a poem about a woman's lock of hair being cut off
January 16, 2017
2 stars! Eat that Pope.
Echoes in Dryden, Pope of the stodgy CW workshop poetics of balance, every line offering the reader something, yarm yawp yarm, etc. Particularly those imagistic lines that represent concordia discors. See the play of color here: "Here in full light the russet plains extend; / There wrapped in clouds the bluish hills ascend. / Ev'n the wild heath displays her purple dyes." Get a little queasy every time I have to read Pope.
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Returned to this to see the ways in which Pope was inverting some of his pastoral images in writing the Fleet Ditch games, particularly those that involve waters and the Thames--what flows into & out of it. Here, empire. Really struck by how self-consciously his landscape is. Compared to the Romantics, its almost refreshing. As in, no one would mistake this for anything but an allegorical wood. Anyway.
Echoes in Dryden, Pope of the stodgy CW workshop poetics of balance, every line offering the reader something, yarm yawp yarm, etc. Particularly those imagistic lines that represent concordia discors. See the play of color here: "Here in full light the russet plains extend; / There wrapped in clouds the bluish hills ascend. / Ev'n the wild heath displays her purple dyes." Get a little queasy every time I have to read Pope.
/
Returned to this to see the ways in which Pope was inverting some of his pastoral images in writing the Fleet Ditch games, particularly those that involve waters and the Thames--what flows into & out of it. Here, empire. Really struck by how self-consciously his landscape is. Compared to the Romantics, its almost refreshing. As in, no one would mistake this for anything but an allegorical wood. Anyway.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews