RIGHT JUSTIFIED (?): A Collection of Ad Hominem Political Sonnets

by Colley Cibber

RJ(?) is a tongue-in-cheek purview of the personalities and media claques who comprise the present administration. Such a clot of brash, corrupt, incompetent and unthinking political sorts--gathered under the same banner, sharing their ineptitude, and wreaking havoc upon the American political and economic system--begs recognition. To observe these principals brought together in a single book is to look into a self-obsessed, self-contained world of staggering myopia, mindless belligerence, greed, opportunism and "ears" clearly deaf to the blaring realities of the 21st century.Here, often in their own words, are the facts of the matter. As has been rightly "If America goes dark, the world goes dark." Perhaps the light that glimmers through this collection may, in a small way, help forestall such a dread and dismal occurrence.At last Mr. Cibber has got it right! A man of questionable talent, loose morals, and a genuine antipathy to the higher reaches of literature, he seems to have stumbled upon a subject best suited to his always base and often profane point of the hijacking of that great American illusion, democracy.Cibber is never more at home than here, in a subject best suited to his style; that is to say, a subject as lacking in style and substance as Mr. Cibber himself. However, there is something to be said for this "like to like" assessment. As Cibber pretends to poetry, they to the subtleties of politics; the results as dumbfounding and catastrophic as might ever be imagined.There is, of course, Mr. Cibber's typical, coarse humor, hand in hand with a rather club-footed, ponderous wit (my apologies to Mr. Pope). Still, as an indictment (and indictments, it seems, are soon to abound) of where the right has got it wrong, Mr. Cibber's book offers--loath to say--an often delightful condemnation of those American Tories who would undo the past few centuries of get-down anarchy and return to the comforts and inequities of a benevolent monarchy. This book may well offer insight into how to speak to a Tory--if you must.Dr. Samuel Johnson, Oxford

288 pages, Paperback

First published August 9, 2006

About the author

Colley Cibber was an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber (1740) describes his life in a personal, anecdotal and even rambling style. He wrote 25 plays for his own company at Drury Lane, half of which were adapted from various sources, which led Robert Lowe and Alexander Pope, among others, to criticise his "miserable mutilation" of "crucified Molière [and] hapless Shakespeare". He regarded himself as first and foremost an actor and had great popular success in comical fop parts, while as a tragic actor he was persistent but much ridiculed. Cibber's brash, extroverted personality did not sit well with his contemporaries, and he was frequently accused of tasteless theatrical productions, shady business methods, and a social and political opportunism that was thought to have gained him the laureateship over far better poets. He rose to ignominious fame when he became the chief target, the head Dunce, of Alexander Pope's satirical poem Dunciad.

Cibber's poetical work was derided in his time, and has been remembered only for being poor. His importance in British theatre history rests on his being one of the first in a long line of actor-managers, on the interest of two of his comedies as documents of evolving early 18th-century taste and ideology, and on the value of his autobiography as a historical source.