John Dyer
Encyclopedia
John Dyer was a painter and Welsh poet turned clergyman of the Church of England
who maintained an interest in his Welsh ancestry. He was most recognized for Wordsworth’s sonnet, To The Poet, John Dyer, addressed to him, and for Grongar Hill, one of Dyer’s six early poems featured in Richard Savage
’s Miscellaneous Poems and Translations by Several Hands (February 1726), a collection of works featuring ‘Hillarian’ circle verse. His unsuccessful works include Ruins of Rome, The Fleece, Country Walk, An Epistle To A Friend In Town, To Aurelia and The Enquiry.
Although Dyer’s popularity was short lived after Grongar Hill, William Wordsworth
and John Gray
praised John Dyer’s imagination and style as having, “more of poetry in his imagination than almost any of our number, but rough and injudicious.”
----
five miles from Grongar Hill. His exact birth date is unknown, but the earliest existing record of John Dyer dates his baptism on the 13th of August 1699 – presumably within fourteen days after his birth as such was the tradition of the time – in a parish in Llanfynnydd, Carmarthenshire. His grandfather was Llanfynnydd’s churchwarden. His father was a highly successful solicitor
in Llanfynnydd, where he owned several properties in the neighborhood. Presumably for financial opportunity and modest living space for six children, the family moved to Aberglasney
, Carmarhenshire, once owned by Robert Dryer’s mother’s ancestors, into the nearby parish of Llangathen
as tenants before gaining ownership of the parish.
Dyer attended elementary school in an unknown school in the countryside of Llanfynndd or Llangathen before attending Westminster School
during Dr. Friend’s headmaster reign from 1711 to 1733. Dyer’s dislike for Westminster was chronicled in his Journal of Escapes evidenced by the 1714 entry, “Ran from school and my father, on a box of the ear being given me strolled for three or four days – found at Windsor.” He retained little of what he learned, later in life, evidenced by his unfamiliarity with Latin
authors despite the Latin author based grammar and courses taught in Westminster. After Westminster School, Dyer worked in his father’s office learning his father’s solicitor business well and displayed talent in the field of law evidenced by the lawsuits of which he was involved. He was the only one of our sons to have managed his property well. John’s father who desired his son to pursue a career as solicitor subdued the poet’s longing to channel his creativity through painting and writing. Ralph M. Williams, on John’s state of mind upon returning to Aberglasney, writes, “It is here that we first begin to know something of his personality and see for the first time the conflict in him between the dreamy romantic and the practical man of business that runs through his life.” Having grown up in the archaic monastic buildings of Aberglasney it was not surprising that Dyer had developed an interest in antiquities and his love with nature, as fostered in his 1716 Pindaric ode
version of Grongar Hill.
Robert Dyer’s death on July 8, 1720 ended John’s apprenticeship of the law and was not named in his father’s will, relinquishing John from handling the lawsuit riddled estate bequeathed to his brother, Robert Dyer
. John Dyer left Aberglasney for London in 1720 or 1721 to pursue painting and poetry.
. Richardson’s fundamental principle of painting was that all aspects of learning, from reading, observing of nature, studying works by masters in painting to writing poetry were necessary as to provide inspiration that artists could cull for their work. As a result, Dyer retained such interests and translated his studies into verbal landscape art and saved quotes from John Milton
’s Paradise Lost in his commonplace book. His first attempt in writing octosyllabic couplets from the young John Milton was in an epistle
to the Famous Painter about his mentor. The second version of Grongar Hill was penned in octosyllabic couplets of four cadences. It was under Richardson that Dyer met his coffee group of friends, Thomas Edwards
, Daniel Wray
, George Knapton
and Arthur Pond
. Pond would later be referred to in The Fleece (IV. 265). Little is known about his paintings, for most have been lost, but his peers’ poems evidenced the praises pertaining to his paintings. He painted a portrait of Martha Fowke Sansom, (also known as Clio
) who was a member of his expanding coffee group-cum-club.
Dyer, with Richardson’s blessing, sailed to Italy in 1724 to continue and further his studies. Upon landing in Italy, Dyer hastily made his way to Rome
, where the Roman objects of antiquity and art, like he had been in Aberglasney, naturally attracted him. The Pantheon
was a favorite building and preoccupied his time during the trip, while the Colosseum
and the Baths of Caracalla
were also held in high regard. Among sculptures and reliefs, he makes note the Hercules
, the Apollo
, the “Venus of Medicis,” the Laocoon
, Trajan
’s column], the temple of Pallas
, the arches of Titus
and Constantine
and the Borghese Dancers. Such were the inspirations or objects of interest in Dyer’s poem The Ruins of Rome, written in 1740. It was in Italy that Dyer penned the third version of Grongar Hill.
Dyer visited the Ocriculum ruins near the city of Otricoli
. Here Dyer sketched and painted and found inspiration to pen the poem Written at Ocriculum in Italy, 1725, in the style of Milton’s Lycidas which served to foreshadow the Ruins of Rome. He then visited Florence, where his visits to museums and buildings instigated the shift from the classical to the Renaissance period to create one of his best paintings, a copy of Antonio da Correggio
’s masterpiece, “Madonna Adoring the Christ Child.”
fever caught in the Campagna
and his pursuits in painting were unsuccessful. He began to contemplate his future as documented in the poem, Written at Ocriculum, penned by Dyer. This poem was written in the perspective of a seer who appears to Dyer in a vision and warns against Dyer’s ambitions of fame by alluding to the once grand architecture of Roman antiquity that now sits in ruins. With Dyer forced to take a third person perspective of the state of his own health, the poet mulled about his future in painting, while considering an alternative, pious lifestyle. He briefly returned to Aberglasney in 1727 after the year and half trip to Italy and estranged himself from his brother, Robert. The next several years were spent in London, where he was bestowed his mother’s inheritance after her death in 1735. He then moved to Mapleton
, where he inherited and flipped a rundown farm into profitability. It was during this period that he gained insight into the wool
industry that inspired The Fleece. It was not until 1741 when he traveled to Worcester
that he pursued a position in the Church of England and was ordained as an Anglican deacon in September of that year by the Bishop of Lincoln
and a priest by October. He married 26-year-old widow, Sarah Ensor Hawkins (who was said to be a descendant of Shakespeare) that same year with whom he had several children. He was then ordered by the Church of England to relocate to Catthorpe
in Leicestershire
, Belchford
(1751) where he began writing The Fleece, which was published in March of 1757. In 1752, he was made LL.B of Cambridge
by royal mandate and moved to Coningsby
the same year. In 1756, he moved to Kirby-on-Bane of which these last three residences were Lincolnshire
parishes.
in 1903 for the Welsh Library, vol. iv.
----
’s Windsor Forest. The rhymes and grammar in Grongar Hill are uncertain but this was his best and most recognized work that captured the style of Romanticism
. Like his fascination and background in landscape paintings, Dyer worked outside of the trend of political oriented work and focused his concerns with the countryside landscape of his time – namely the colors and visual perspective as a trained painter, thus as a landscape poet.
dealing with the tending of sheep, the shearing and preparation of the wool, weaving, and trade in woolen manufactures. The epic was written in a lofty manner, inclusive of a moral and patriotic material for the point is made that England has a respect for trade and consequently prospers. On a more personal level, he reflects on the benefits that trade will bring to him. The Fleece failed to gain recognition.
----
“Written at Ocriculum”
"The Ruins of Rome"
“The Country Walk”
“The Fleece”
“The Happy Disappointment”
"To Aurelia"
"The Enquiry"
“To Clio, from Rome” (metrical exercise)
“Written at Ocriculum in Italy, 1725”
“Occasioned by the Behavior of some of the Hereford Clergy, 1728”
“A Epistle to a Friend in Town” (1729)
“Cambro-Briton” (1737, unfinished)
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
who maintained an interest in his Welsh ancestry. He was most recognized for Wordsworth’s sonnet, To The Poet, John Dyer, addressed to him, and for Grongar Hill, one of Dyer’s six early poems featured in Richard Savage
Richard Savage
Richard Savage was an English poet. He is best known as the subject of Samuel Johnson's Life of Savage , on which is based one of the most elaborate of Johnson's Lives of the English Poets....
’s Miscellaneous Poems and Translations by Several Hands (February 1726), a collection of works featuring ‘Hillarian’ circle verse. His unsuccessful works include Ruins of Rome, The Fleece, Country Walk, An Epistle To A Friend In Town, To Aurelia and The Enquiry.
Although Dyer’s popularity was short lived after Grongar Hill, William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
and John Gray
John Gray (poet)
John Gray was an English poet whose works include Silverpoints, The Long Road and Park: A Fantastic Story. It has often been suggested that he was the inspiration behind Oscar Wilde's fictional Dorian Gray....
praised John Dyer’s imagination and style as having, “more of poetry in his imagination than almost any of our number, but rough and injudicious.”
----
Youth
John Dyer was the fourth of six children born to Robert and Catherine Cocks Dyer in Llanfynnydd, CarmarthenshireCarmarthenshire
Carmarthenshire is a unitary authority in the south west of Wales and one of thirteen historic counties. It is the 3rd largest in Wales. Its three largest towns are Llanelli, Carmarthen and Ammanford...
five miles from Grongar Hill. His exact birth date is unknown, but the earliest existing record of John Dyer dates his baptism on the 13th of August 1699 – presumably within fourteen days after his birth as such was the tradition of the time – in a parish in Llanfynnydd, Carmarthenshire. His grandfather was Llanfynnydd’s churchwarden. His father was a highly successful solicitor
Solicitor
Solicitors are lawyers who traditionally deal with any legal matter including conducting proceedings in courts. In the United Kingdom, a few Australian states and the Republic of Ireland, the legal profession is split between solicitors and barristers , and a lawyer will usually only hold one title...
in Llanfynnydd, where he owned several properties in the neighborhood. Presumably for financial opportunity and modest living space for six children, the family moved to Aberglasney
Aberglasney
Aberglasney House and Gardens is a medieval house and gardens set in the Tywi valley, Carmarthenshire, West Wales. It is owned and run by Aberglasney Restoration Trust, a registered charity.- Location :...
, Carmarhenshire, once owned by Robert Dryer’s mother’s ancestors, into the nearby parish of Llangathen
Llangathen
Llangathen is a community located in Carmarthenshire, Wales....
as tenants before gaining ownership of the parish.
Dyer attended elementary school in an unknown school in the countryside of Llanfynndd or Llangathen before attending Westminster School
Westminster School
The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools, with the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college in Britain...
during Dr. Friend’s headmaster reign from 1711 to 1733. Dyer’s dislike for Westminster was chronicled in his Journal of Escapes evidenced by the 1714 entry, “Ran from school and my father, on a box of the ear being given me strolled for three or four days – found at Windsor.” He retained little of what he learned, later in life, evidenced by his unfamiliarity with Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
authors despite the Latin author based grammar and courses taught in Westminster. After Westminster School, Dyer worked in his father’s office learning his father’s solicitor business well and displayed talent in the field of law evidenced by the lawsuits of which he was involved. He was the only one of our sons to have managed his property well. John’s father who desired his son to pursue a career as solicitor subdued the poet’s longing to channel his creativity through painting and writing. Ralph M. Williams, on John’s state of mind upon returning to Aberglasney, writes, “It is here that we first begin to know something of his personality and see for the first time the conflict in him between the dreamy romantic and the practical man of business that runs through his life.” Having grown up in the archaic monastic buildings of Aberglasney it was not surprising that Dyer had developed an interest in antiquities and his love with nature, as fostered in his 1716 Pindaric ode
Ode
Ode is a type of lyrical verse. A classic ode is structured in three major parts: the strophe, the antistrophe, and the epode. Different forms such as the homostrophic ode and the irregular ode also exist...
version of Grongar Hill.
Robert Dyer’s death on July 8, 1720 ended John’s apprenticeship of the law and was not named in his father’s will, relinquishing John from handling the lawsuit riddled estate bequeathed to his brother, Robert Dyer
Robert Dyer
Robert Dyer left the village of Heytesbury, in the county of Wiltshire, England to voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to serve as a Newfoundland School Society teacher in the fishing community of Greenspond, Newfoundland...
. John Dyer left Aberglasney for London in 1720 or 1721 to pursue painting and poetry.
Painting and Poetry
In London, Dyer apprenticed as a watercolor painter under artist Jonathan RichardsonJonathan Richardson (painter)
Jonathan Richardson sometimes called "the Elder" to distinguish him from his son) was an English artist, collector of drawings, and writer on art, working almost entirely as a portrait-painter in London. He was considered by some art-critics as one of the three foremost painters of his time. He...
. Richardson’s fundamental principle of painting was that all aspects of learning, from reading, observing of nature, studying works by masters in painting to writing poetry were necessary as to provide inspiration that artists could cull for their work. As a result, Dyer retained such interests and translated his studies into verbal landscape art and saved quotes from John Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
’s Paradise Lost in his commonplace book. His first attempt in writing octosyllabic couplets from the young John Milton was in an epistle
Epistle
An epistle is a writing directed or sent to a person or group of people, usually an elegant and formal didactic letter. The epistle genre of letter-writing was common in ancient Egypt as part of the scribal-school writing curriculum. The letters in the New Testament from Apostles to Christians...
to the Famous Painter about his mentor. The second version of Grongar Hill was penned in octosyllabic couplets of four cadences. It was under Richardson that Dyer met his coffee group of friends, Thomas Edwards
Thomas Edwards
Thomas Edwards VC was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.-Details:...
, Daniel Wray
Daniel Wray
-Life:Born on 28 November 1701 in the parish of St. Botolph, Aldersgate, he was the youngest child of Sir Daniel Wray , a London citizen and soap-boiler residing in Little Britain, by his second wife. His father was knighted on 24 March 1708, while high sheriff of Essex, where he possessed an...
, George Knapton
George Knapton
George Knapton was an English portrait painter and the first portraitist for the Society of Dilettanti in the 1740s. He became Surveyor and Keeper of the King's Pictures from 1765-1778.-Life and work:...
and Arthur Pond
Arthur Pond
Arthur Pond was an English painter and engraver.-Life:Born about 1705, was educated in London, and stayed for a time in Rome studying art, in company with the sculptor Roubiliac. He became a successful portrait-painter....
. Pond would later be referred to in The Fleece (IV. 265). Little is known about his paintings, for most have been lost, but his peers’ poems evidenced the praises pertaining to his paintings. He painted a portrait of Martha Fowke Sansom, (also known as Clio
Clio
thumb|Clio—detail from [[The Art of Painting|The Allegory of Painting]] by [[Johannes Vermeer]]In Greek mythology, Clio or Kleio, is the muse of history. Like all the muses, she is a daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne...
) who was a member of his expanding coffee group-cum-club.
Dyer, with Richardson’s blessing, sailed to Italy in 1724 to continue and further his studies. Upon landing in Italy, Dyer hastily made his way to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, where the Roman objects of antiquity and art, like he had been in Aberglasney, naturally attracted him. The Pantheon
Pantheon, Rome
The Pantheon ,Rarely Pantheum. This appears in Pliny's Natural History in describing this edifice: Agrippae Pantheum decoravit Diogenes Atheniensis; in columnis templi eius Caryatides probantur inter pauca operum, sicut in fastigio posita signa, sed propter altitudinem loci minus celebrata.from ,...
was a favorite building and preoccupied his time during the trip, while the Colosseum
Colosseum
The Colosseum, or the Coliseum, originally the Flavian Amphitheatre , is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire...
and the Baths of Caracalla
Baths of Caracalla
The Baths of Caracalla in Rome, Italy were Roman public baths, or thermae, built in Rome between AD 212 and 216, during the reign of the Emperor Caracalla.- History :...
were also held in high regard. Among sculptures and reliefs, he makes note the Hercules
Hercules
Hercules is the Roman name for Greek demigod Heracles, son of Zeus , and the mortal Alcmene...
, the Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
, the “Venus of Medicis,” the Laocoon
Laocoön
Laocoön the son of Acoetes is a figure in Greek and Roman mythology.-History:Laocoön is a Trojan priest of Poseidon , whose rules he had defied, either by marrying and having sons, or by having committed an impiety by making love with his wife in the presence of a cult image in a sanctuary...
, Trajan
Trajan
Trajan , was Roman Emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, in Spain Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in Spain, in 89 Trajan supported the emperor against...
’s column], the temple of Pallas
PALLAS
This article is about the research group. See Pallas for other uses of this word.PALLAS stands for Parallel Applications, Libraries, Languages, Algorithms, and Systems. It is a research group in of the at , led by...
, the arches of Titus
Titus
Titus , was Roman Emperor from 79 to 81. A member of the Flavian dynasty, Titus succeeded his father Vespasian upon his death, thus becoming the first Roman Emperor to come to the throne after his own father....
and Constantine
Constantine I
Constantine the Great , also known as Constantine I or Saint Constantine, was Roman Emperor from 306 to 337. Well known for being the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, Constantine and co-Emperor Licinius issued the Edict of Milan in 313, which proclaimed religious tolerance of all...
and the Borghese Dancers. Such were the inspirations or objects of interest in Dyer’s poem The Ruins of Rome, written in 1740. It was in Italy that Dyer penned the third version of Grongar Hill.
Dyer visited the Ocriculum ruins near the city of Otricoli
Otricoli
Otricoli is a town and comune in the province of Terni, Umbria, Italy. It is located on the Via Flaminia, near the east bank of the Tiber, 44 miles north of Rome and 12 miles south of Narni.-History and landmarks:...
. Here Dyer sketched and painted and found inspiration to pen the poem Written at Ocriculum in Italy, 1725, in the style of Milton’s Lycidas which served to foreshadow the Ruins of Rome. He then visited Florence, where his visits to museums and buildings instigated the shift from the classical to the Renaissance period to create one of his best paintings, a copy of Antonio da Correggio
Antonio da Correggio
Antonio Allegri da Correggio , usually known as Correggio, was the foremost painter of the Parma school of the Italian Renaissance, who was responsible for some of the most vigorous and sensuous works of the 16th century...
’s masterpiece, “Madonna Adoring the Christ Child.”
Late Life
In Rome, Dyer fell ill with malariaMalaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
fever caught in the Campagna
Campagna
Campagna is a small town and comune of the province of Salerno, in the Campania region of Southern Italy.-History:The town, located in a mountainous district, gradually lost importance in the 20th century...
and his pursuits in painting were unsuccessful. He began to contemplate his future as documented in the poem, Written at Ocriculum, penned by Dyer. This poem was written in the perspective of a seer who appears to Dyer in a vision and warns against Dyer’s ambitions of fame by alluding to the once grand architecture of Roman antiquity that now sits in ruins. With Dyer forced to take a third person perspective of the state of his own health, the poet mulled about his future in painting, while considering an alternative, pious lifestyle. He briefly returned to Aberglasney in 1727 after the year and half trip to Italy and estranged himself from his brother, Robert. The next several years were spent in London, where he was bestowed his mother’s inheritance after her death in 1735. He then moved to Mapleton
Mapleton
Mapleton may refer to:in Australia* Mapleton, Queenslandin Canada* Mapleton, Nova Scotia* Mapleton, Ontarioin England* Mapleton, Derbyshirein the USA* Mapleton, Illinois* Mapleton, Iowa* Mapleton, Kansas* Mapleton, Maine* Mapleton, Minnesota...
, where he inherited and flipped a rundown farm into profitability. It was during this period that he gained insight into the wool
Wool
Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....
industry that inspired The Fleece. It was not until 1741 when he traveled to Worcester
Worcester
The City of Worcester, commonly known as Worcester, , is a city and county town of Worcestershire in the West Midlands of England. Worcester is situated some southwest of Birmingham and north of Gloucester, and has an approximate population of 94,000 people. The River Severn runs through the...
that he pursued a position in the Church of England and was ordained as an Anglican deacon in September of that year by the Bishop of Lincoln
Bishop of Lincoln
The Bishop of Lincoln is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Lincoln in the Province of Canterbury.The present diocese covers the county of Lincolnshire and the unitary authority areas of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. The Bishop's seat is located in the Cathedral...
and a priest by October. He married 26-year-old widow, Sarah Ensor Hawkins (who was said to be a descendant of Shakespeare) that same year with whom he had several children. He was then ordered by the Church of England to relocate to Catthorpe
Catthorpe
Catthorpe is a village and civil parish in the Harborough district of Leicestershire, England. It is close to the A5 road which forms the border with Warwickshire - the nearest town is Rugby, about four miles south-west. The parish had a population of 179 according to the 2001 census. The parish...
in Leicestershire
Leicestershire
Leicestershire is a landlocked county in the English Midlands. It takes its name from the heavily populated City of Leicester, traditionally its administrative centre, although the City of Leicester unitary authority is today administered separately from the rest of Leicestershire...
, Belchford
Belchford
Belchford is a village and civil parish in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England, about 11 km north of Horncastle and just to the east of the A153 road...
(1751) where he began writing The Fleece, which was published in March of 1757. In 1752, he was made LL.B of Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
by royal mandate and moved to Coningsby
Coningsby
Coningsby is a village in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England.-Geography:Taking its name from the Old Norse 'konungr' meaning 'King' with an Old Norse suffix 'by' meaning 'the settlement of' which gives Coningsby the meaning 'The Settlement of the King'...
the same year. In 1756, he moved to Kirby-on-Bane of which these last three residences were Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...
parishes.
Death
He died in December of 1757 and was buried on December 15th. His poems were collected by Dodsley in 1770, and by Edward ThomasEdward Thomas (poet)
Philip Edward Thomas was an Anglo-Welsh writer of prose and poetry. He is commonly considered a war poet, although few of his poems deal directly with his war experiences. Already an accomplished writer, Thomas turned to poetry only in 1914...
in 1903 for the Welsh Library, vol. iv.
----
Grongar Hill
Grongar Hill was Dyer’s first published work originally appearing in Richard Savage’s Miscellaneous Poems and Translations by Several Hands 1726 written in irregular ode in Pindaric style about Dyer’s study of nature and as a tribute to his ancestral familial Wales estate. In the same year, after having received much acclaim, Dyer rewrote the 150-line piece in a loose measure of four cadences in octosyllabic couplets like Milton’s L’Allegro and like Alexander PopeAlexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
’s Windsor Forest. The rhymes and grammar in Grongar Hill are uncertain but this was his best and most recognized work that captured the style of Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
. Like his fascination and background in landscape paintings, Dyer worked outside of the trend of political oriented work and focused his concerns with the countryside landscape of his time – namely the colors and visual perspective as a trained painter, thus as a landscape poet.
The Ruins of Rome
The Ruins of Rome was a less successful descriptive poem in 545 lines of Miltonic blank-verse, chronicling the disappointing natural scenery of the naked Italian mountains and muddy rivers, as written in the opening lines. Dyer writes as a historical poet but lacks generality and emotion. Belinda Humfrey simplifies the structure of Grongar Hill and The Ruins of Rome relating the narrative structures of both poems. She writes, “There is a climb to the top of a hill with reflections on the way and then, on reaching the top, a survey of the scenery all around, accompanied by some crowning reflections.”The Fleece
The Fleece was written in four books and was a didactic Georgic blank-verse epicEpic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
dealing with the tending of sheep, the shearing and preparation of the wool, weaving, and trade in woolen manufactures. The epic was written in a lofty manner, inclusive of a moral and patriotic material for the point is made that England has a respect for trade and consequently prospers. On a more personal level, he reflects on the benefits that trade will bring to him. The Fleece failed to gain recognition.
----
List Of Works
“Grongar Hill”“Written at Ocriculum”
"The Ruins of Rome"
“The Country Walk”
“The Fleece”
“The Happy Disappointment”
"To Aurelia"
"The Enquiry"
“To Clio, from Rome” (metrical exercise)
“Written at Ocriculum in Italy, 1725”
“Occasioned by the Behavior of some of the Hereford Clergy, 1728”
“A Epistle to a Friend in Town” (1729)
“Cambro-Briton” (1737, unfinished)