147-] English Literature
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Thomas Love Peacock
Literary
Career
Thomas
Love Peacock was an accomplished poet, essayist, opera critic, and satiric
novelist. During his lifetime his works received the approbation of other
writers (some of whom were Peacock’s friends and the targets of his satire),
literary critics (many of whom were simply his targets), and a notoriously
vocal reading public. Today, Peacock’s reputation rests almost exclusively on
the merits of his seven novels, four of which—Headlong Hall, Melincourt,
Nightmare Abbey, and Maid Marian—appeared in quick succession between 1815 and
1822. The remaining three—The Misfortunes of Elphin, Crotchet Castle, and Gryll
Grange—were written and published at more leisurely intervals, Gryll Grange not
appearing until 1861, five years before Peacock’s death. Peacock’s novels
record the intellectual, social, economic, and literary discussions (sometimes
battles) of early 19th-century England. They are, in one sense, “conversation
novels,” and many of the characters who take part in the various conversations
were modeled after the leading personalities of Peacock’s day. Peacock’s novels
have lost none of their appeal, however, for the subjects they address continue
to inform the political and social dialogues. Their comedy still delights
readers, and the conversations never go for long without a pause for comic
action or comment.
At age six, Peacock entered a school at
Englefield Green, then kept by John Harris Wicks. Several of the verse letters
he wrote to family members during this time show an early interest and ability
in social satire. Peacock seems to have been content at school and managed to
impress his master, but the six years he spent at Englefield Green constituted
Peacock’s first and only formal education. By February 1800, Peacock was
working as a clerk for the merchant house of Ludlow, Fraser, and Co. in London,
but he remained in their employment only briefly. He began writing poems and
incidental essays at this time, and in late 1805, Palmyra, his first collection
of poems, was published and well received. The title poem, a study of
apocalyptic ruin, represents Peacock’s attempt at serious, learned poetry
written in the style of his 18th-century forebears.
Shortly after the publication of Palmyra,
Peacock became engaged to Fanny Falkner, a young woman from his neighborhood of
Chertsey. The couple’s engagement, which the interference of one of Miss
Falkner’s relatives soon brought to an end, was later recounted in the poem
“Newark Abbey” (written in 1842). In 1808 Peacock served briefly as under
secretary to Adm. Sir Home Popham aboard the HMS Venerable, which never left
the harbor while Peacock was on board. The nature of his duties is not clear,
but he was happy to go ashore after some six months to begin a walking tour of
the Thames, soon afterward recounted in The Genius of the Thames (1810), an ode
in two parts. The poem represents Peacock’s attempt to describe the river and
all that it means to him and to England. The tour of the Thames was followed by
a journey to Wales, where Peacock finished his poem and met Jane Gryffydh,
daughter of a Welsh parson. Peacock would propose marriage to her eight years
later, but for the time being his mind seems to have been on poetry, which he
continued to write and publish.
In October or November of 1812, Peacock met
Percy Bysshe Shelley, who would soon come to depend on Peacock as a friend and
as a literary critic/assistant. Shelley seems to have admired Peacock’s poetry
(especially Palmyra), despite the marked differences in the two poets’ subjects
and techniques. By this time Peacock had one more major poem, The Philosophy of
Melancholy (1812), to his credit. As Peacock explains in his prefatory “General
Analysis,” the poem argues that contemplating mutability ennobles the mind, and
that art and human relationships derive their “principal charms” and “endearing
ties” from a philosophical consideration of mutability. Meanwhile the
friendship of Peacock and Shelley continued to grow, and Peacock continued to
write and to experiment with new subjects and literary forms. Two plays, The
Dilettanti and The Three Doctors, neither of which was published or produced
during Peacock’s lifetime, were probably written during this time. A much more
successful venture was Sir Hornbook (1813), subtitled A Grammatico-Allegorical
Ballad, which provided instruction in grammar for children. Its hero, Childe
Launcelot, conquers the parts of speech with the assistance of Sir Hornbook as
they travel toward an understanding of language and prosody. The book went
through five illustrated editions in five years, thanks to Peacock’s talent for
making grammar fun.
Peacock continued to travel, returning to
Wales in 1813. At this time he was at work on two poems: the unfinished
mythological epic Ahrimanes, written in Spenserian stanzas; and Sir Proteus,
published in March 1814. The latter is a satiric attack on Robert Southey, the
poet laureate, whose career Peacock had followed with some interest for several
years. William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Walter Scott, and the
periodical press also undergo satiric correction in Sir Proteus, but the focus
of this pseudolearned poem is Southey, whose poems, Peacock’s persona argues,
are written without reference to taste, nature, or conscience. Shortly after
the publication of Sir Proteus, Peacock learned of Shelley’s elopement with
Mary Godwin, daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Two weeks
after the elopement, Shelley wrote a letter to his wife, Harriet, inviting her
to join them on the Continent. In the same letter Shelley told Harriet that he
had asked Peacock to look after her financial needs. Peacock evidently did as
he was asked, motivated in part by his sympathy for Harriet and in part by his
esteem for his friend.
In
a quieter time, in 1795, Peacock had begun a letter to his mother with these
lines: “DEAR MOTHER, I attempt to write you a letter/In verse, tho’ in prose, I
could do it much better.” It would take Peacock 20 years to try his skill at
prose fiction, but inevitably he did so, and with important and far-reaching
results. In 1815, with the Shelleys back in London and living near enough to
make regular visits possible, Peacock began working on his first novel, Headlong
Hall, published later that year. With its reliance upon characters who embody
“opinions,” its use of the country-house setting, its frequent departures into
dramatic conversation, and its satiric intent, Headlong Hall proved to be much
better than any of Peacock’s still commendable poetic productions. This first
novel was also to be the prototype for the majority of Peacock’s later novels,
for in subsequent works he modified, but never completely abandoned, the
formula of Headlong Hall.
The
novel is set at the country estate of Squire Harry Headlong, an individual who,
“unlike other Welsh squires ... had actually suffered certain phenomena, called
books, to find their way into his house.” Squire Headlong’s thirst for
knowledge takes him to Oxford in search of philosophers and men of taste, but
he is told that none reside there. The disappointed squire decides to transform
his well-stocked home into a meeting place for such individuals. His most
important guests are Mr. Foster, a “perfectibilian”; Mr. Escot, a
“deteriorationist”; Mr. Jenkison, a “statu-quo-ite”; and Reverend Dr. Gaster,
an individual whose principal talent is eating well.
Peacock’s
characters agree on virtually nothing. They are not supposed to agree or for
that matter to modify their own particular prejudices, to convince their
listeners to change their views, or to take any real offense at the insults
hurled at them from all sides. Their disagreements bring to life the purpose of
the novel, which is announced on the title page:
All philosophers, who find
Some favourite
system to their mind,
In every point to
make it fit,
Will force all
nature to submit .
The
arguments commence on the first page of the novel and address topics that range
from the ridiculous to the truly significant. A remark that “the day was none
of the finest” occasions the response, “quite the contrary.” Breakfast affords
the characters an opportunity to argue about whether animal products should be
included in an Englishman’s diet. Next, the grounds of Headlong Hall provide
the occasion for a dialogue on whether natural or artistically landscaped
gardens are superior. The novel thus begins innocently with characters
discussing subjects of questionable significance but bristling with satiric
undertones. His audience won, Peacock turns to the more substantive issues.
During the winter of 1815-1816, Peacock and
Shelley continued to visit and to read Greek together. Peacock also began
working on The Round Table; or, King Arthur’s Feast (1817), a children’s poem
that outlines the history of English royalty. Peacock’s principal literary
interests at this time, however, were two prose pieces: Calidore, an unfinished
novel based upon Arthurian legends; and Melincourt (1817), an ambitious and
highly topical novel written with the same spirit and with much the same intent
as Headlong Hall.
In a much more leisurely way than Headlong
Hall, Melincourt treats subjects such as original versus modern man, literary
tastes, and the education of women, but the attention given to other ideas and
controversies shows that Peacock was not simply out to rewrite his first novel.
Melincourt, like Headlong Hall, includes a host of characters who contribute to
both the serious and the not-so-serious moments in the novel. Peacock’s
characters—whether they represent serious thinkers who clearly have won their
author’s approval or strategically placed buffoons—all play parts in bringing to
life the purpose of the novel, which is to expose social flaws and to show that
individuals can and do change. In achieving this purpose, Melincourt offers
fewer pauses for comedy than Headlong Hall and devotes most of its attention to
arguments that are longer, more serious, and more complex than the arguments in
the earlier novel. Without going so far as to say that Melincourt is a serious
book, one may say that its comedy is subservient to its social ideas and
purposes in a degree that the comedy in Headlong Hall is not.
After
publishing Melincourt in three volumes in 1817, Peacock turned once more to
verse and to his considerable knowledge of classical poetry. The result,
published in February 1818, was Rhododaphne, a Greek love poem written in ode
form and concerned with the traditional theme of supernatural interference in
earthly love. Peacock enjoyed Mary Shelley’s assistance with the transcription
of the text and Percy Shelley’s praise. George Gordon, Lord Byron, also found
merit in Peacock’s poem. Thus Peacock was beginning to win recognition in the
literary world (John Keats, however, seemed not to like him). During the
revision of his Laon and Cynthia (1817), Shelley actually solicited Peacock’s
help. Peacock was not, however, making much of a living by his writing and was
by this time receiving some financial support from Shelley. This fact, along
with others, may help to explain Mary Shelley’s usual indifference to and
occasional dislike for Peacock. On one occasion, for example, she referred to Peacock
and Thomas Jefferson Hogg as members of Shelley’s “menagerie.” For his part,
Peacock seems always to have kept the Shelleys’ interests in mind and was
instrumental in securing Mary Shelley’s financial comfort following the death
of her husband.
Not
surprisingly, the Shelleys and their penchant for reform eventually proved to
be irresistible subjects waiting for Peacock to translate into the medium of
satiric fiction. With two satiric novels to his credit, Peacock was ready to
try his skill once again. The result was Nightmare Abbey, which Peacock offered
to the public in October 1818. By far Peacock’s least serious novel, Nightmare
Abbey concerns the unhappy love interests of one Scythrop Glowry, as those
interests take shape at various times in the persons of Miss Marionetta
O’Carroll and Miss Celinda Toobad. One must approach with caution the idea that
these characters represent deliberate portraits of Percy Shelley, his first
wife, Harriet, and Mary Shelley. However, most readers of Peacock now agree
with the editors of the Halliford Edition of Peacock’s Works: “To regard
Scythrop and his ladies as deliberate portraits, even of persons unknown to the
public, would be as absurd as to ignore the resemblances.”
The
resemblances are, at the very least, thought provoking. Scythrop, whenever he
is not moping in his tower over one woman or another (and he spends most of his
time doing just that), gives vent to his “passion for reforming the world.” He
writes a pamphlet titled “Philosophical Gas; or, a Project for a General
Illumination of the Human Mind.” This “deep scheme for a thorough repair of the
crazy fabric of human nature” sells a total of seven copies.
While
Scythrop may bear some resemblance to Peacock’s friend Shelley, the satire in
Nightmare Abbey is never allowed to cut very deep. Although he might easily
have done so, Peacock does not encourage his readers to take anyone in this
novel very seriously; the seriousness of Melincourt is nowhere to be found in
Nightmare Abbey. In its place one finds good-natured satire and comedy for the
sake of laughter. Even Shelley, who read the novel in Italy, offered words of
praise for its ability to amuse in a June 1819 letter to Peacock: “I am
delighted with Nightmare Abbey. I think Scythrop a character admirably
conceived & executed & I know not how to praise sufficiently the
lightness chastity & strength of the language of the whole.”
The
periodical press responded with similar praise in the Literary Gazette (12
December 1818) and the Monthly Review (November 1819). Like Shelley, Byron
found amusement in his caricature and asked Shelley to pass along his
admiration to Peacock.
The
literary world apparently liked the way Peacock wrote about its living
practitioners in Nightmare Abbey, and Peacock continued to indulge his own sort
of fascination with that world. In fact, during July 1818, Peacock began to
look more closely at it and started to apply some shape to his thoughts with
the “Essay on Fashionable Literature.” This essay remained unfinished and was
never published in Peacock’s lifetime. The part that survives represents the
beginning of what probably would have been a full-scale attack aimed at
exposing the many forms of dishonesty upon which Peacock felt periodical
writing was based. The final part of the surviving fragment is devoted to
Peacock’s rebuttal of an Edinburgh Review essay that had found fault, and very
little else, in Coleridge’s Christabel (1816). As the several caricatures of
Coleridge elsewhere in Peacock’s writings show, Peacock himself had found ideas
and techniques not to his liking in Coleridge’s writings. Nevertheless, the
many reviews and quarterlies of Peacock’s day represented, in his estimation,
true enemies of truth and therefore irresistible targets.
While
Peacock was preparing, and eventually laying aside, the “Essay on Fashionable
Literature,” he was also busy at work on his next novel, Maid Marian (1822).
Even this project came to a halt, however, as Peacock’s energies were diverted
to two nonliterary pursuits. The first was his employment, commencing in
January 1819, as assistant to the examiner at the India House, where he would
continue to work his way up through positions of increasing responsibility
until his retirement in 1856. Another assistant appointed in 1819 was the Utilitarian
philosopher and historian of British India James Mill, then 46. Mill’s son,
John Stuart Mill, joined the India House in 1823.
Around
this time, Peacock proposed to Jane Gryffydh, whom he had met on his tour of
Wales in 1811. Peacock had neither seen nor corresponded with his future wife
since 1811, but the proposal, which he made by mail, was nevertheless accepted,
and the couple was married on March 20, 1820. Peacock continued his employment
at the India House, and in April 1821 he passed his probationary period and
received an increase in salary from 600 to 800 pounds per year. Literature was
never far from his mind, and at various times Shelley called upon him to read
and correct proofs of several poems.
Peacock,
of course, felt that modern poetry needed more correction than a mere reading
of proofs could provide, and in November 1820 his “The Four Ages of Poetry”
appeared in the first (and last) number of Ollier’s Literary Miscellany.
Shelley escapes the ridicule leveled at “that egregious confraternity of
rhymesters, known by the name of the Lake Poets,” all of whom, maintains
Peacock, are “studiously ignorant of history, society, and human nature.”
Peacock’s thesis is that modern poetry abounds in everything poetically bad and
sorely lacks everything poetically good. His argument that modern poetry is
merely derivative, and badly so, is a clear challenge to the often-professed
belief of the Romantic poets that their work represented something new. Shelley
quickly answered Peacock’s challenge with his “Defence of Poetry,” but this
essay, intended for the next number of Ollier’s Literary Miscellany, did not
appear in print until 1840.
In
July 1821 Peacock’s first child, Mary Ellen, was born. Peacock continued to
pursue his work at the India House and soon returned to the writing project he
had postponed in 1818. Maid Marian, Peacock’s fourth novel, was published in
April 1822. Based in part upon Joseph Ritson’s anonymous Robin Hood (1795),
Maid Marian was written, according to Peacock, in order to cast “oblique satire
on all the oppressions that are done under the sun.” The novel does not quite
live up to its author’s ambitious aims, but Maid Marian does provide readers
with a brief look at an alternative society, however unattainable that society
may be.
The
story takes its direction from the main characters’ involvement in two major
pursuits. The first follows the Sheriff of Nottingham, Prince John, and Sir
Ralph Montfaucon (an agent for King Henry) as they chase Robin Hood through
Sherwood Forest in order to prosecute him for his various “crimes” against
various authorities. The second pursuit follows Sir Ralph, Prince John, and
Robin Hood as they vie for the hand of Matilda Fitzwater, daughter of the local
baron, and known as Maid Marian in the society of Sherwood Forest. Only Robin
Hood has a hope of obtaining this independent young lady, for Maid Marian, who
is as skilled with words as she is with a bow and arrow, is not one to be
intimidated by princes or barons, or by the power that they wrongly seek to
exercise over others. She is, moreover, as Matilda Fitzwater, engaged to be
married to her one true love, Robert, Earl of Huntingdon, also known as Robin
Hood.
Peacock
seems to be suggesting that individuals can and should try to emulate that which
is noble in his two “outlaws,” Robin and Marian, but he does so even while
showing that their society is unrealistic and comically anarchistic. In other
words, the foresters’ laws provide a fitting retaliation to the various
wrongdoings of the evil Prince John, but they are no answer to the complex
problems facing any real society. The “principles” of their society have
several obvious shortcomings. The foresters proclaim their government to be
“legitimate” and follow this proclamation with another stating that all English
laws, except for those that they deem convenient to obey, are null and void.
Peacock’s readers would have recognized that most tyrannous reigns begin with
similar announcements. The foresters’ system of “Equity” shows a similar susceptibility
to abuse. They steal from the rich, but the poor receive only “a portion
thereof as it may seem to us expedient to part with.” In order to avoid all of
the nastiness associated with stealing, the foresters “invite” their “guests”
to pay for their dinners. The foresters’ internal politics include unmistakable
double meanings, for example: “In all cases a quorum of foresters shall
constitute a court of equity, and as many as may be strong enough to manage the
matter in hand shall constitute a quorum.” Like other governments, the forest
government has its share of pettiness: No one is allowed to call a forester by
his or her given name, and anyone who does so must pay a fine or pay a fee for
exemption from the rule to the friar, who has devised this plan for the purpose
of enriching himself.
Although
it is not “serious” satire in the sense that viable alternatives to social
problems are offered, Maid Marian is an engaging and delightfully comic story,
full of song and incident. The novel received favorable notices in the
periodical press , and on 3 December 1822 an operatic version of the novel,
augmented and scored by James Robinson Planché, was produced at Covent Garden
theater. The opera ran for 28 performances in 14 months, received critical
acclaim, and inspired an American production in 1824. The opera did not do well
in America, however, and closed after one night at the Park Theatre in New
York.
Peacock’s
enjoyment of the success of Maid Marian must have been tempered by a tragic
event that occurred in the same year. On July 8, 1822 Percy Bysshe Shelley
drowned off the coast of Italy. Peacock immediately began efforts to assist
Mary Shelley in obtaining financial support from Shelley’s father, Sir Timothy
Shelley, who had always disapproved strongly of his son’s manner of living.
Peacock was successful in bringing the two parties to an agreement, despite
their mutual dislike and many differences of opinion, receiving praise from
both Mary and Sir Timothy for his efforts.
The
1820s were an especially active time for Peacock. In March 1823, a second
daughter, Margaret Love Peacock, was born. In the same year Peacock purchased
two cottages at Halliford and moved his young family and his mother there. The
happy times at Halliford did not last long, however, for in January 1826, just
two months short of her third birthday, Margaret Love Peacock died. Shortly
afterward, the Peacocks adopted Mary Rosewell, a young girl from the
neighborhood, but Jane Peacock’s happiness proved to be only temporary. The
death of Margaret triggered a mental breakdown in Jane Peacock that grew worse
with time. She remained a nervous invalid until her death in 1851.
Despite
these hardships, Peacock continued to prosper in his work at the India House.
Through his colleague James Mill, he met the philosopher Jeremy Bentham, with
whom he dined weekly for many years. Peacock also began writing literary review
essays for publication in the Westminster Review. He would later write for
several of the other leading journals on subjects ranging from steam navigation
(one of his projects at the India House) to French literature. By the middle of
the decade Peacock was at work on Paper Money Lyrics, his last collection of
poetry, which was not published until 1837. During the years 1830-1834, Peacock
busied himself with writing many operatic reviews for two periodicals, the
Globe and the Examiner.
In
February 1829 the Literary Gazette announced the impending publication of
Peacock’s next novel, The Misfortunes of Elphin. The novel is concerned with
political/social reform, but Peacock never forces the idea of 19th-century
reform any further than the 6th-century Welsh setting will comfortably allow.
In other words The Misfortunes of Elphin is a pleasant little story that is
richly endowed with careful depictions of Welsh history and custom and that
incidentally, though quite deliberately, uses the past in order to reveal some
of the weaknesses of modern society. The book received critical praise both for
its satire and for its depiction of life in ancient Wales.
While
Peacock was engaged in writing opera reviews and other periodical essays, he
was also composing his next novel, Crotchet Castle, published in 1831.
Peacock’s attention was, as always, divided among his several responsibilities,
and while working on Crotchet Castle he was also studying the idea of regular
steamship service between Great Britain and India (he submitted his findings to
Parliament in 1834) and supervising the construction and fitting of steamships,
several of which were designed to his specifications. Peacock evidently carried
out his duties with great success, prompting one acquaintance to remark, “Mr.
Peacock was meant for an Admiral.”
As
Carl Dawson has noted, Crotchet Castle marks Peacock’s return “from the world
of romance to the world of talk.” The method of Crotchet Castle closely
resembles the design of Headlong Hall, Nightmare Abbey, and Melincourt, with
the arguments of characters (or caricatures) once more taking precedence over
the love story, which once again ends with wedding bells. Crotchet Castle, like
its predecessors, is the stage for a dozen or so “bubble-blowers,” or
characters who embody opinions, but Peacock’s two main concerns in this novel
are the unscrupulous business practices made possible by a paper-money economy
and the problems associated with the “march of mind,” one of the ideologies of
the reform movement of the 1830s that promoted education for all.
During
the years following the publication of Crotchet Castle several changes took
place in Peacock’s life. In 1833 his mother died. Sarah Love Peacock had lived
with her son and his family for many years, and Peacock had come to rely upon
her as a literary collaborator. Her advice concerning his longer works was
usually solicited and accepted. Peacock wrote little between 1834 and 1838, and
published nothing from 1838 until 1851. Family cares and a promotion to the
position of examiner at the India House allowed little time for literary
pursuits. Happiness visited the family briefly in 1844 with Mary Ellen
Peacock’s marriage to Navy Lieutenant Edward Nicolls. Three months later,
however, Nicolls was lost at sea and presumably drowned. Mary Ellen later gave
birth to a daughter, Edith, who in later years assisted Peacock’s first editors
in assembling her grandfather’s writings and reminiscences.
In
1851 Peacock, with the assistance of Mary Ellen, who in 1849 had married author
George Meredith, wrote “Gastronomy and Civilization,” which appeared in the
December number of Fraser’s Magazine. Shortly afterward Peacock published two
sections of the three-part “Horae Dramticae,” a series of reminiscences of the
drama, in Fraser’s Magazine (March and April 1852). Peacock approached the work
with leisure, the final part appearing more than a year after his retirement
from the India House in March 1856. Shortly after the publication of the last
installment in October 1857, Mary Ellen, unhappy from the start with her
marriage to Meredith, fled to Capri with painter Henry Wallis. Peacock never
saw her again. In 1861, having returned to England alone, she died. Peacock did
not attend her funeral.
In
1858, inspired by the publication of what he considered erroneous accounts of
Shelley’s life, Peacock began working on the periodical pieces known
collectively as the “Memoirs of Percy Bysshe Shelley,” the first of which
appeared in the June 1858 issue of Fraser’s Magazine. Peacock then decided to
suspend work on his memoir until Thomas Jefferson Hogg completed his work on
Shelley’s life, but the furor raised over Hogg’s work persuaded Peacock to
continue his project. Peacock’s account of Shelley’s life—which continued in
the January and March 1860 issues of Fraser’s, with a “Supplementary Notice” in
March 1862—is drawn largely from personal knowledge and is considered by most
scholars to be objective, yet guarded in its treatment of Shelley’s more
irrational acts and ideas.
Peacock’s
main literary interest at this time was Gryll Grange, which appeared serially
from April through December 1860 in Fraser’s Magazine. This novel, which was to
be Peacock’s last, was published as a book in February 1861. Gryll Grange
closely resembles Peacock’s other novels in both its spirit and its design, but
the satire and the story are developed more gradually than in any of his
earlier novels. Gryll Grange also shows an approach to character different (and
some believe more realistic) from that in Peacock’s previous fiction. The main
characters, and many of the minor ones, are multidimensional in ways that their
earlier counterparts are not: they enjoy full lives that have nothing to do
with their opinions on social matters. In other words, the characters are free
to live day to day and to engage in “discussion[s] on everything that presents
itself.”
Gryll
Grange received favorable notices. Peacock wrote Gryll Grange during an active
period in which he also began, but eventually set aside, at least three prose
tales. His last published work was the prose translation (1862) of an anonymous
Italian play of the 1530s, Gl’ Ingannati, which appeared in 1862. Peacock wrote
nothing after this date, preferring to spend his days quietly, and preferably
without visitors, in his library at Lower Halliford. He was troubled in his
last years by an intestinal ailment. He died on 23 January 1866 and was buried
in the New Cemetery at Shepperton.
An
early discussion of Peacock’s work—a review of Nightmare Abbey published in the
Literary Gazette for December 1818—enunciates a concern that is still voiced by
Peacock’s readers and critics: “It would be difficult to say what his books
are,” wrote the anonymous reviewer, “for they are neither romances, novels,
tales, nor treatises, but a mixture of all these combined.” Yet Peacock remains
important today not only because his novels are among the best of their type,
but because the issues they address are universal. To read Peacock’s best
novels is to be reminded of the universality of human action and thought and of
how susceptible to ridicule and/or revision the supposed triumphs of humanity
really are.
Works
Peacock's
own place in literature is pre-eminently that of a satirist. That he has
nevertheless been the favourite only of the few is owing partly to the highly
intellectual quality of his work,[citation needed] but mainly to his lack of
ordinary qualifications of the novelist, all pretension to which he entirely
disclaims. He has no plot, little human interest, and no consistent delineation
of character. His personages are mere puppets, or, at best, incarnations of
abstract qualities such as grace or beauty, but beautifully depicted.
His
comedy combines the mock-Gothic with the Aristophanic. He suffers from that
dramatist's faults and, though not as daring in invention or as free in the use
of sexual humour, shares many of his strengths. His greatest intellectual love
is for Ancient Greece, including late and minor works such as the Dionysiaca of
Nonnus; many of his characters are given punning names taken from Greek to
indicate their personality or philosophy.
He
tended to dramatize where traditional novelists narrated; he is more concerned
with the interplay of ideas and opinions than of feelings and emotions; his
dramatis personae is more likely to consist of a cast of more or less equal
characters than of one outstanding hero or heroine and a host of minor auxiliaries;
his novels have a tendency to approximate the Classical unities, with few
changes of scene and few if any subplots; his novels are novels of conversation
rather than novels of action; in fact, Peacock is so much more interested in
what his characters say to one another than in what they do to one another that
he often sets out entire chapters of his novels in dialogue form. Plato's
Symposium is the literary ancestor of these works, by way of the Deipnosophists
of Athenaeus, in which the conversation relates less to exalted philosophical
themes than to the points of a good fish dinner.
Novels
Headlong
Hall (published 1815 but dated 1816) [revised slightly, 1837] , Melincourt
(1817) ,Nightmare Abbey (1818) [revised slightly, 1837] , Maid Marian (1822) , The
Misfortunes of Elphin (1829) ,Crotchet Castle (1831) [revised slightly, 1837] ,
Gryll Grange (1861) [serialised first during 1860]
Verse
The
Monks of St. Mark (1804) ,Palmyra and other Poems (1805) , The Genius of the
Thames: a Lyrical Poem (1810) ,The Genius of the Thames Palmyra and other Poems
(1812) ,The Philosophy of Melancholy (1812) , Sir Hornbook, or Childe
Launcelot's Expedition (1813) ,Sir Proteus: a Satirical Ballad (1814)
The
Round Table, or King Arthur's Feast (1817) ,Rhododaphne: or the Thessalian
Spirit (1818) , Paper Money Lyrics (1837) , "The War-Song of Dinas
Vawr" (in The Misfortunes of Elphin, 1829)
Essays
The
Four Ages of Poetry (1820) ,Recollections of Childhood: The Abbey House (1837)
, Memoirs of Shelley (1858–62) , The Last Day of Windsor Forest (1887)
[composed 1862] , Prospectus: Classical Education
Plays
The Three Doctors , The Dilettanti , Gl'Ingannati, or The Deceived (translated from the Italian, 1862) , Unfinished tales and novels , Satyrane (c. 1816) , Calidore (c. 1816) , The Pilgrim of Provence (c. 1826) , The Lord of the Hills (c. 1835) , Julia Procula (c. 1850) , A Story Opening at Chertsey (c. 1850) , A Story of a Mansion among the Chiltern Hills (c. 1859) , Boozabowt Abbey (c. 1859) , Cotswald Chace (c. 1860)
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