What do you think?
Rate this book
The Seasons
A scholarly edition of a work by James Thomson. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.
508 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1730
10 people are currently reading
250 people want to read
About the author
James Thomson
907 books12 followersJames Thomson was a Scottish poet and playwright, known for poems like The Seasons, The Castle of Indolence, and the lyrics of the song Rule Britannia.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
December 23, 2022
This mostly forgotten verse sequence is probably the most influential long poem between Milton and Wordsworth, and was endlessly quoted and referred to by eighteenth-century writers. How good you really think it is will depend on your taste (Cowper's The Task and Darwin's The Botanic Garden are both more fun, I think), but it's still well worth a read if you're interested in pastoral verse or the concerns of Georgian society, many of which are shoehorned into the poem at various points.
Thomson had originally studied divinity, and The Seasons seems to have begun as a standard paean to God's beneficence as seen in the natural world. But references to God become fewer and fewer as he works on it, overlaid with more secular accretions about natural philosophy; Newton is a key influence, and there are mentions also of Boyle and Bacon. Thomson's many proto-scientific excursions are fascinating, taking in the geology of mountains, meteorological phenomena, plant osmosis, and the profusion of microscopic life:
The scientific precision of Thomson's language is not always easy to spot nowadays, since many of the words he uses (bland, austere, attractive, temperate) now have much more general meanings, where for Thomson they were used in specific technical ways. (He's cited often in Johnson's Dictionary in these senses.) Apart from this stuff, it would be wrong to pretend that there is much of a plot going on here. Swift famously found The Seasons quite boring because ‘they are all Descriptions, and nothing is doing’, and you'd have to concede that this is a fair criticism. If you like descriptive verse, though, this is a touchpoint. Thomson has a lovely lugubrious sense of splendour, as in passages like this depiction of twilight in autumn:
Many of Thomson's turns of phrase are echoed, consciously and un-, in writers from Frances Burney to Jane Austen to Charlotte Smith, and indeed he's often quoted explicitly. Given his importance at the time, it's surprising, perhaps, that he isn't read now, and I don't even think there is a cheap popular edition of The Seasons available. (This scholarly edition from OUP is excellent, but they'll want £66 for it if you order it from their website.) It feels like a missing piece in many ways, and, beyond his long literary influence, any lover of eighteenth-century language will still find plenty of reason to read Thomson directly.
Thomson had originally studied divinity, and The Seasons seems to have begun as a standard paean to God's beneficence as seen in the natural world. But references to God become fewer and fewer as he works on it, overlaid with more secular accretions about natural philosophy; Newton is a key influence, and there are mentions also of Boyle and Bacon. Thomson's many proto-scientific excursions are fascinating, taking in the geology of mountains, meteorological phenomena, plant osmosis, and the profusion of microscopic life:
Gradual, from These what numerous Kinds descend,
Evading even the microscopic Eye!
Full Nature swarms with Life; one wondrous Mass
Of Animals, or Atoms organiz'd,
Waiting the vital Breath…
The scientific precision of Thomson's language is not always easy to spot nowadays, since many of the words he uses (bland, austere, attractive, temperate) now have much more general meanings, where for Thomson they were used in specific technical ways. (He's cited often in Johnson's Dictionary in these senses.) Apart from this stuff, it would be wrong to pretend that there is much of a plot going on here. Swift famously found The Seasons quite boring because ‘they are all Descriptions, and nothing is doing’, and you'd have to concede that this is a fair criticism. If you like descriptive verse, though, this is a touchpoint. Thomson has a lovely lugubrious sense of splendour, as in passages like this depiction of twilight in autumn:
Thence expanding far,
The huge Dusk, gradual, swallows up the Plain.
Vanish the Woods. The dim-seen River seems
Sullen, and slow, to rowl the misty Wave.
Even in the Height of Noon opprest, the Sun
Sheds weak, and blunt, his wide-refracted Ray;
Whence glaring oft, with many a broaden'd Orb,
He frights the Nations. Indistinct on Earth,
Seen thro' the turbid Air, beyond the Life,
Objects appear; and, wilder'd, o'er the Waste
The Shepherd stalks gigantic. Till at last
Wreath'd dun around, in deeper Circles still
Successive closing, sits the general Fog
Unbounded o'er the World; and, mingling thick,
A formless grey Confusion covers all.
As when of old (so sung the Hᴇʙʀᴇᴡ Bᴀʀᴅ)
Light, uncollected, thro' the Chaos urg'd
Its Infant Way; nor Order yet had drawn
His lovely Train from out the dubious Gloom.
Many of Thomson's turns of phrase are echoed, consciously and un-, in writers from Frances Burney to Jane Austen to Charlotte Smith, and indeed he's often quoted explicitly. Given his importance at the time, it's surprising, perhaps, that he isn't read now, and I don't even think there is a cheap popular edition of The Seasons available. (This scholarly edition from OUP is excellent, but they'll want £66 for it if you order it from their website.) It feels like a missing piece in many ways, and, beyond his long literary influence, any lover of eighteenth-century language will still find plenty of reason to read Thomson directly.
October 6, 2014
The poem The Seasons is a tour de force by poet James Thomson, published as a complete poem cycle in 1730. It's a brilliant exploration of the cycles of life and nature as we pass through a year.
I had studied "pastoral" literature and poetry in a British literature class, but I didn't really understand what it means for something to be pastoral until I'd read several hundred pages that celebrates nature, extolling the virtues of rural life and the lives of simple folk like shepherds. Here's a taste from the poem Spring (lines 101-6):
"Now from the Town
Buried in Smoke, and Sleep, and noisom Damps,
Oft let me wander o'er the dewy Fields,
Where Freshness breathes, and dash the trembling Drops
From the bent Bush, as thro' the verdant Maze
Of Sweet-briar Hedges I pursue my Walk;"
This work is expansive, and mentions dozens (perhaps hundreds) of types of birds, animals, and plants, and yet city-life is completely ignored in favor of celebrating nature. While most of the poem cycle focuses on the seasons as they are experienced in England and Scotland, in the poem Summer we even jump to the tropics and the Latin American rain forests.
The poem is filled with references to mythology, the Bible, scientific progress, and philosophy. Winter struck me as bleak, harsher than we perceive the season today, with death more present. Each season's poem was distinct, yet beautifully told. At the bottom of this review I'll include a portion of one of the poems.
This is a book that I can say that I am proud to have read. It took me a lot of work over months of time, but it was worth it. If you're up for several hundred pages of important, yet somewhat ignored pastoral poetry, then this book is for you.
I actually read an edition of this book that's not on Goodreads. It's a scholarly edition that I checked out at a university library, edited by James Sambrook. It actually contain each version of each poem--apparently Walt Whitman was not the first poet to extensively edit his verse. I largely just read the main version, though it was interesting to have the others there. I'd definitely recommend a hard copy or ebook copy of the book--the copy that's available to read online is going to make reading it a miserable experience.
And here is one of my favorite passages, lines 371-422 of the poem Summer, where Thomson describes the work of shepherds:
Or rushing thence, in one diffusive Band,
They drive the troubled Flocks, by many a Dog
Compell’d, to where the mazy-running Brook
Forms a deep Pool: This Bank abrupt and high,
And That fair-spreading in a pebbled Shore.
Urg’d to the giddy Brink, much is the Toil,
The Clamour much of Men, and Boys, and Dogs,
Ere the soft fearful People to the Flood
Commit their woolly Sides. And oft the Swain,
On some impatient seizing, hurls them in:
Embolden’d then, nor hesitating more,
Fast, fast, they plunge amid the flashing Wave,
And panting labour to the farther Shore.
Repeated This, till deep the well-wash’d Fleece
Has drunk the Flood, and from his lively Haunt
The Trout is banish’d by the sordid Stream;
Heavy, and dripping, to the breezy Brow
Slow-move the harmless Race: where, as they spread
Their swelling Treasures to the sunny Ray,
Inly disturb’d, and wondering what this wild
Outrageous Tumult means, their loud Complaints
The Country fill; and, toss’d from Rock to Rock,
Incessant Bleatings run around the Hills.
At last, of snowy White, the gather’d Flocks
Are in the wattled Pen inumerous press’d,
Head above Head; and, rang’d in lusty Rows,
The Shepherds sit, and whet the sounding Shears.
The Housewife waits to roll her fleecy Stores,
With all her gay-drest Maids attending round.
One, chief, in gracious Dignity inthron’d,
Shines o’er the Rest, the pastoral Queen, and rays
Her Smiles, sweet-beaming, on her Shepherd-King;
While the glad Circle round them yield their Souls
To festive Mirth, and Wit that knows no Gall.
Meantime, their joyous Task goes on apace:
Some mingling stir the melted Tar, and Some,
Deep on the new-shorn Vagrant’s heaving Side,
To stamp his Mater’s Cipher ready stand;
Others th’ unwilling Wether drag along,
And, glorying in his Might, the sturdy Boy
Holds by the twisted Horns th’ indignant Ram.
Behold where bound, and of its Robe bereft,
By needy Man, that all-depending Lord,
How meek, how patient, the mild Creature lies!
What Softness in its melancholy Face,
What dumb complaining Innocence appears!
Fear not, ye gentle Tribes, ‘tis not the Knife
Of horrid Slaughter that is o’er you wav’d;
No, ‘tis the tender Swain’s well-guided Shears,
Who having now, to pay his annual Care,
Borrow’d your Fleece, to you a cumbrous Load,
Will send you bounding to your Hills again.
I had studied "pastoral" literature and poetry in a British literature class, but I didn't really understand what it means for something to be pastoral until I'd read several hundred pages that celebrates nature, extolling the virtues of rural life and the lives of simple folk like shepherds. Here's a taste from the poem Spring (lines 101-6):
"Now from the Town
Buried in Smoke, and Sleep, and noisom Damps,
Oft let me wander o'er the dewy Fields,
Where Freshness breathes, and dash the trembling Drops
From the bent Bush, as thro' the verdant Maze
Of Sweet-briar Hedges I pursue my Walk;"
This work is expansive, and mentions dozens (perhaps hundreds) of types of birds, animals, and plants, and yet city-life is completely ignored in favor of celebrating nature. While most of the poem cycle focuses on the seasons as they are experienced in England and Scotland, in the poem Summer we even jump to the tropics and the Latin American rain forests.
The poem is filled with references to mythology, the Bible, scientific progress, and philosophy. Winter struck me as bleak, harsher than we perceive the season today, with death more present. Each season's poem was distinct, yet beautifully told. At the bottom of this review I'll include a portion of one of the poems.
This is a book that I can say that I am proud to have read. It took me a lot of work over months of time, but it was worth it. If you're up for several hundred pages of important, yet somewhat ignored pastoral poetry, then this book is for you.
I actually read an edition of this book that's not on Goodreads. It's a scholarly edition that I checked out at a university library, edited by James Sambrook. It actually contain each version of each poem--apparently Walt Whitman was not the first poet to extensively edit his verse. I largely just read the main version, though it was interesting to have the others there. I'd definitely recommend a hard copy or ebook copy of the book--the copy that's available to read online is going to make reading it a miserable experience.
And here is one of my favorite passages, lines 371-422 of the poem Summer, where Thomson describes the work of shepherds:
Or rushing thence, in one diffusive Band,
They drive the troubled Flocks, by many a Dog
Compell’d, to where the mazy-running Brook
Forms a deep Pool: This Bank abrupt and high,
And That fair-spreading in a pebbled Shore.
Urg’d to the giddy Brink, much is the Toil,
The Clamour much of Men, and Boys, and Dogs,
Ere the soft fearful People to the Flood
Commit their woolly Sides. And oft the Swain,
On some impatient seizing, hurls them in:
Embolden’d then, nor hesitating more,
Fast, fast, they plunge amid the flashing Wave,
And panting labour to the farther Shore.
Repeated This, till deep the well-wash’d Fleece
Has drunk the Flood, and from his lively Haunt
The Trout is banish’d by the sordid Stream;
Heavy, and dripping, to the breezy Brow
Slow-move the harmless Race: where, as they spread
Their swelling Treasures to the sunny Ray,
Inly disturb’d, and wondering what this wild
Outrageous Tumult means, their loud Complaints
The Country fill; and, toss’d from Rock to Rock,
Incessant Bleatings run around the Hills.
At last, of snowy White, the gather’d Flocks
Are in the wattled Pen inumerous press’d,
Head above Head; and, rang’d in lusty Rows,
The Shepherds sit, and whet the sounding Shears.
The Housewife waits to roll her fleecy Stores,
With all her gay-drest Maids attending round.
One, chief, in gracious Dignity inthron’d,
Shines o’er the Rest, the pastoral Queen, and rays
Her Smiles, sweet-beaming, on her Shepherd-King;
While the glad Circle round them yield their Souls
To festive Mirth, and Wit that knows no Gall.
Meantime, their joyous Task goes on apace:
Some mingling stir the melted Tar, and Some,
Deep on the new-shorn Vagrant’s heaving Side,
To stamp his Mater’s Cipher ready stand;
Others th’ unwilling Wether drag along,
And, glorying in his Might, the sturdy Boy
Holds by the twisted Horns th’ indignant Ram.
Behold where bound, and of its Robe bereft,
By needy Man, that all-depending Lord,
How meek, how patient, the mild Creature lies!
What Softness in its melancholy Face,
What dumb complaining Innocence appears!
Fear not, ye gentle Tribes, ‘tis not the Knife
Of horrid Slaughter that is o’er you wav’d;
No, ‘tis the tender Swain’s well-guided Shears,
Who having now, to pay his annual Care,
Borrow’d your Fleece, to you a cumbrous Load,
Will send you bounding to your Hills again.
September 27, 2024
I liked this when he's talking about nature or describing man's interaction with it (farming, shepherding), but when he starts telling stories about particular characters he tends to lose me. Some unnamed guy stumbling around and dying in the wilderness does not enhance my appreciation of nature. OTOH, I quite liked his tale of the bee hive destroyed by man in Autumn. When he sticks to nature, this thing is great. When he talks about man, sometimes it works for me, mostly it doesn't.
Some of the false scientific ideas of the time weaken the thing as well, although I wonder if I would have noticed them much if I hadn't so recently read Conevery Bolton Valencius' The Health of the Country, where she talks about ideas of the time involving natural airs and effluviums and suchlike causing disease.
I like his description of a summer thunderstorm:
How chang'd the scene! In blazing height of noon,
The sun, oppress'd, is plung'd in thickest gloom.
Still horror reigns, a dreary twilight round,
Of struggling night and day malignant mix'd.
For to the hot equator crowding fast,
Where, highly rarefied, the yielding air
Admits their stream, incessant vapours roll,
Amazing clouds on clouds continual heap'd;
Or whirl 'd tempestuous by the gusty wind,
Or silent borne along, heavy and slow,
With the big stores of steaming oceans charg'd.
Meantime, amid these upper seas, condens'd
Around the cold aerial mountain's brow,
And by conflicting winds together dash'd,
The thunder holds his black tremendous throne ;
From cloud to cloud the rending lightnings rage ;
Till, in the furious elemental war
Dissolv'd, the whole precipitated mass
Unbroken floods and solid torrents pours.
Now and then there's a lovely little bit of imagery:
… catch the last smiles
Of Autumn beaming o'er the yellow woods.
Or this, from Winter:
[An Icy Night]
The full ethereal round,
Infinite worlds disclosing to the view,
Shines out intensely keen; and, all one cope
Of starry glitter, glows from pole to pole.
And I liked the Hymn at the end, although it is a very different tone from the rest. It's addressed to God and he stays on point with it:
Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfin'd,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In Winter, awful thou! with clouds and storms
Around thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest roll’d,
Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing
Riding sublime, thou bidd'st the world adore,
And humblest nature with thy northern blast.
Some of the false scientific ideas of the time weaken the thing as well, although I wonder if I would have noticed them much if I hadn't so recently read Conevery Bolton Valencius' The Health of the Country, where she talks about ideas of the time involving natural airs and effluviums and suchlike causing disease.
I like his description of a summer thunderstorm:
How chang'd the scene! In blazing height of noon,
The sun, oppress'd, is plung'd in thickest gloom.
Still horror reigns, a dreary twilight round,
Of struggling night and day malignant mix'd.
For to the hot equator crowding fast,
Where, highly rarefied, the yielding air
Admits their stream, incessant vapours roll,
Amazing clouds on clouds continual heap'd;
Or whirl 'd tempestuous by the gusty wind,
Or silent borne along, heavy and slow,
With the big stores of steaming oceans charg'd.
Meantime, amid these upper seas, condens'd
Around the cold aerial mountain's brow,
And by conflicting winds together dash'd,
The thunder holds his black tremendous throne ;
From cloud to cloud the rending lightnings rage ;
Till, in the furious elemental war
Dissolv'd, the whole precipitated mass
Unbroken floods and solid torrents pours.
Now and then there's a lovely little bit of imagery:
… catch the last smiles
Of Autumn beaming o'er the yellow woods.
Or this, from Winter:
[An Icy Night]
The full ethereal round,
Infinite worlds disclosing to the view,
Shines out intensely keen; and, all one cope
Of starry glitter, glows from pole to pole.
And I liked the Hymn at the end, although it is a very different tone from the rest. It's addressed to God and he stays on point with it:
Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfin'd,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In Winter, awful thou! with clouds and storms
Around thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest roll’d,
Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing
Riding sublime, thou bidd'st the world adore,
And humblest nature with thy northern blast.
October 13, 2023
too much anastrophe, really pompous for me. sure some of the personification and metaphors are interesting but as a modern reader trying to be entertain I derailed and ended up chatting with my friends on several occasions. passable I suppose.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 28, 2015
According to the Patrick Murdoch’s Life of the Author that preceded my edition of James Thomson’s The Seasons, autumn was Thomson’s favorite time of the year. We share that in common. I enjoyed reading his four poems that touched on physical, mental and spiritual moments throughout the year. The edition I read was in a beautiful binding and it used the 1746 edition of the text, the last one revised by the author before his death.
Thomson’s word choices and phrasing can slow down the modern reader, and some contemporary reviewers felt he needed to say things more simply. But, there are joyful moments throughout each section. I delighted in his description of the joy post-harvest in autumn (lines 1213-1223) and the pleasures of reading in winter (431-439). In spring, true love blossoms (1113-1125) and in summer, sleep is something that shouldn’t be overdone as there is so much life to live (67-80).
Thomson’s word choices and phrasing can slow down the modern reader, and some contemporary reviewers felt he needed to say things more simply. But, there are joyful moments throughout each section. I delighted in his description of the joy post-harvest in autumn (lines 1213-1223) and the pleasures of reading in winter (431-439). In spring, true love blossoms (1113-1125) and in summer, sleep is something that shouldn’t be overdone as there is so much life to live (67-80).
February 15, 2022
Full transparency: I only read Winter. It was good. Definitely fits the pre-Romantic. It's a prospect poem written with the elitist use of Miltonic blank verse to support Thomson's hierarchical political agenda but it nonetheless was a good read which flowed more than a tightly controlled poem with a fixed rhyme scheme.
Feminisation of some aspects of nature in this poem was an interesting one. Made me question the role of the masculine in shaping nature, and how we can consider phallogocentric linguistic norms in the Symbolic Order at work here in subjugating the feminine (and thus, nature) as inferior to man. and how, too, we can consider how then nature reflects back the man, and whether this power struggle between the two forces thus demonstrates that we are both shaped by and shaping nature simultaneously.
Feminisation of some aspects of nature in this poem was an interesting one. Made me question the role of the masculine in shaping nature, and how we can consider phallogocentric linguistic norms in the Symbolic Order at work here in subjugating the feminine (and thus, nature) as inferior to man. and how, too, we can consider how then nature reflects back the man, and whether this power struggle between the two forces thus demonstrates that we are both shaped by and shaping nature simultaneously.
onhold
March 6, 2014http://archive.org/stream/seasonsbyja...
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(wiki sourced): James Thomson (11 September 1700 – 27 August 1748) was a Scottish poet and playwright, known for his masterpiece The Seasons and the lyrics of Rule, Britannia!.
And of course, Vivaldi as compliment, and it has to be the Nigel Kennedy version. I saw him perform this in Newport, South Wales, oooo many moons ago.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(wiki sourced): James Thomson (11 September 1700 – 27 August 1748) was a Scottish poet and playwright, known for his masterpiece The Seasons and the lyrics of Rule, Britannia!.
And of course, Vivaldi as compliment, and it has to be the Nigel Kennedy version. I saw him perform this in Newport, South Wales, oooo many moons ago.
May 31, 2013
I'm a fan of nature poetry, and I get it Thomson wants to adapt the epic genre conventions and uses nature for this purpose. At times I feel Thomson reaching wonderful heights of natural/poetic reverie:
untasted fields
pensive and wet
hanging over the enlivening blaze
Just a few lines to whet your appetite to join Thomson's fire and recount tales of frolics and laughs and much talk while a storm brews beyond the mossy wild.
When he gets into it - he really achieves something beautiful. That he was struggling to find his own voice amongst the "master spirits" (Virgil, Milton, Homer, Spenser) makes him all the more real, human, anxious and striving.
I like his speed.
untasted fields
pensive and wet
hanging over the enlivening blaze
Just a few lines to whet your appetite to join Thomson's fire and recount tales of frolics and laughs and much talk while a storm brews beyond the mossy wild.
When he gets into it - he really achieves something beautiful. That he was struggling to find his own voice amongst the "master spirits" (Virgil, Milton, Homer, Spenser) makes him all the more real, human, anxious and striving.
I like his speed.
March 26, 2022
Thomson, particularly in Winter, gets heavily criticised for his lack of cohesion, but I think it's incredible how he applies Burke's sublime and creates an unexpected and unique presentation of winter. Given this was published in the 18th century, it is magical how Thomson focuses on the comparisons between mankind and nature as an environmental comment as early as the 18th century. this, for me at least, is the pinnacle of environmental literature, opening the world of surrealism and personification as a political comment.
January 5, 2011
One of my very favorites! A must read!
June 17, 2019
The Seasons, by James Thomson, printed by John Sharp of Piccadilly with steel engravings by Charles Heath of 1819 based on designs by Richard Westall R.A. Printed 1821.
December 28, 2019
Wonderful
September 18, 2023
Live, laugh, love deze gedichtenbundel
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews