Robert Gould
Encyclopedia
Robert Gould was a significant voice in Restoration poetry in England
.
He was born in the lower classes and orphaned when he was thirteen. It is possible that he had a sister, but her name and fate are unknown. Gould entered into domestic service. His first employer is unknown, but hints in his poetry indicate that it was a lady
and that his job was as a footman
. By the age of twenty, however, he had entered the employ of Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset
. Dorset was known for his libertine lifestyle and his patronage of the arts, and Gould possibly learned to read and write and was afforded books to read while in Dorset's employ. He appears to have moved to the pantry side of domestic service.
s to peers, and his odes to ladies are particularly stylized and idealistic. In the seventeenth century, a writer of an ode could expect remuneration, either in the form of a gift or, at the least, a higher fee from the bookseller in anticipation of sales to the flattered subject's supporters and family. Gould did sell his odes, but he appears to have made very little by them. In 1683, however, Gould changed employers and made a name for himself as an author by writing Love Given O'er: Or a Satyr on the Inconstancy of Woman. The poem was at least partially an imitation of Juvenal, but it pursued its theme of misogyny with a fury and detail even Juvenal would not have dared.
It featured nearly pornographic detail. For example, Gould complains of the lust
of women thus,
"And now, if so much to the World’s reveal’d,
Reflect on the vast store that lies conceal’d.
How, oft, into their Closets they retire,
Where flaming Dil– does inflame desire,
And gentle Lap-d--s feed the am’rous fire.
How curst is Man! when Brutes his Rivals prove,
Ev’n in the sacred business of his Love!
Unless Religion pious thoughts instil
Shew me the Woman that would not be ill,
If she, conveniently, cou’d have her will?" (lines 114-123)
These lines are less scathing than the repetition of the anecdote of the Ephesian lady (from Juvenal) who would meet her lovers at her husband's tomb, the statement that women envy the greatness of Eve
's sin, and that a prostitute is far better than a wife, since she only damns the soul, while a wife will damn the soul and destroy all happiness. The poem is a merging of many tropes that were well established attacks on womankind before Gould, and the poem is programmatic in that it takes up the pride, then inconstancy, then lust of women (exactly as its title dictates). However, there is a remarkable amount of invention and specificity in each section, and those topoi he adapts from Classical and other poetry are always given a Restoration application. The particular vehemence in these scourges, along with the relentless pacing of the critique, make the poem stand out in its age and as an epitome of misogyny.
The poem sold extremely well and prompted a verse epistle battle from pretended "Sylvia"s ("Sylvia" having spurned the poet, he vows to be quit of love) who would offer to defend women from Gould's cruelty and pretended "answers" from the author of Love Given O'er (even though few of the "Sylvia" poems were by women, and only one of the "answer" poems was by Gould (a year after the publication of the Love Given O'er)) (Sloan). Gould enjoyed a high profile, and in the same year, 1683, Gould was employed by James Bertie, 1st Earl of Abingdon
.
If Abingdon was not the one who encouraged the poem's composition, he at least enjoyed having the celebrated poet in his household. At around this time, Gould also became a friend of Fleetwood Sheppard
's, who appeared to treat the poet with great generosity. The next poems from Gould continued the misogyny of Love Given O'er (e.g. A Satyr on Wooing, Epistle to One Made Unhappy in Marriage, A Scourge for Ill Wives, inter al.) and attempted to broaden out the satire into an attack on human vanity in particular and mankind in general. Gould's A Satyr on Mankind was, in its own day, noted for its excellence, and Alexander Pope
paraphrases it. Additionally, Jonathan Swift
uses some of the same satirical figures, and it is likely that both authors had read Gould in the 1709 version of his poems. Also in 1683 (on June 17), Gould married Martha Roderick, and the two would later have a daughter named Hannah. Between 1683 and 1689, Gould produced a number of satire
s, some of them providing unique insight into the English Restoration
. Satyr Upon the Play-House (1688), for example, attacked the parentage and pretense of Elizabeth Barry
and Thomas Betterton
, as well as the dissipate, drunken, whoring patrons of the theater. It records the life of London
around Covent Garden
, complete with demobbed soldiers, thieves, prostitutes, and the nobility who only cover their filth in gold, cosmetics, and perfumes. He also produced a few topical satires, such as To Julian, Secretary of the Muses, which attacks an anonymous lampoon
author and gives specific detail about the personalities and personages of some of the dramatists of the day. He even wrote a poem in honor of a retarded
villager of Lavington before, two years later, writing a violent attack on the stupidity and obdurancy of all the "simple folk" of the country.
By 1689, Gould had been employed by Abingdon on his estates in West Lavington, Wiltshire
in some capacity other than as a domestic. In that year, Gould published Poems, Mostly Satyrs. The book was a last-chance effort at financial independence for Gould, and it appears to have succeeded. Gould left domestic service and, with the help of Abingdon, became a teacher full time in West Lavington. However, the year after the publication of Poems, Gould engaged in a bitter exchange with the Poet Laureate
, John Dryden
. Gould was infuriated by Dryden's change of religion, and his Jack Squab (a reference to the Laureate being paid with food as well as brandy) was one of the most vicious (and uncharacteristically crude, for Gould) attacks made on Dryden. The poem is only attributed to Gould on slim evidence, as there are figures of speech and metaphors in it that closely resemble those employed by Gould in The Play-House, but it was not collected into his later Works (1709) and is unusually directed at a single public figure (where Gould's previous habit had been to attack a sin and provide numerous examples of it rather than to devote a whole poem to the viciousness of a single person).
After 1692 and the second edition of Poems, mostly Satyrs, Gould did not publish again until his death (excepting The Rival Sisters, see below). Having left the household of a peer and having left London
, Gould had few occasions for urbane satires. However, the profession of school master apparently left the author with time for revision, for during the two decades that followed, he revised and edited and supplemented his poems extensively. In 1709, Martha Gould, Robert's wife, had Works of Robert Gould published. Robert Gould himself died in January of 1709 (1708 in the Old Style), before the volume's publication. However, the text of the Works has high authority, and every element of the volume appears to have been carefully set by the author. The Satyr on Mankind and Satyr on the Play House, in particular, were vastly rewritten.
. His first tragedy, Innocence Distress'd, was never performed. He took it to the United Company soon after writing it, in 1689. Thomas Betterton was the de facto manager of the theater, and Elizabeth Barry was one of the star actresses. Whether Gould had offended them prior to Satyr on the Play House or not, the two stars would not give him any aid after it. In October of 1695, Gould's second tragedy, The Rival Sisters, was performed at Drury Lane, even though, again, Betterton and Barry opposed it. (By that time, Gould says in the introduction to the 1709 Works, Betterton had forgiven him, but Barry remained obstinate. Therefore, in the 1709 Works, Gould adds another section of the Satyr on the Play House just for Barry and lessens the invective against Betterton.) The tragedy had music by Henry Purcell
, and it was a moderate success by the standards of that troubled year. (See Restoration drama for more on the crises of 1695.)
. Additionally, Gould not only asserts Church of England
positions, but he has nothing but vitriol for radical Protestants, from Richard Baxter
to George Fox
onward. His attacks on ladies and lords show all the marks of estrangement. They are attacked for being less than they would appear. Gould appeared to believe that the nobility should be, in fact, better than the general run of mankind. It is the lie that enrages him most, with betrayal being next in his catalog of sins to lash.
Stylistically, Robert Gould's poetry looks forward somewhat to the poetry of the 1710s. He was the friend of John Oldham
, and there is some similarity in poetic forms. He was also a friend of Fleetwood Shepheard, addressing several poems to him. Shepheard was a confidante to Matthew Prior
and Thomas Rymer
, and Shepheard gave both financial aid to Gould and personal friendship (Sloan). He wrote almost exclusively in closed heroic couplet
s. Other than Dryden, whose poetic output was lowering, few poets of the 1680s are well preserved, and Gould occupies an interesting position. He is a generation younger than the primary Restoration wits (Dryden, Rochester, Buckingham) and younger even than Aphra Behn
. His is the first Restoration generation, and he had only stories about the Interregnum
. He is additionally unique in the literature of the Restoration in being a servant who composed poetry. While the Restoration had many figures who rose from common, or even poor, families, Gould used his writing to win his independence in the most literal way. His pen earned him a profession other than servitude and enabled him to escape a menial life, and, at the same time, allowed him to treat wealthy and established figures on an even footing.
Although Gould was apparently well known to his own and the next two generations of poets, his reputation was virtually erased in the nineteenth century. By the 1730s, when Alexander Pope began to reject the "licentious" Restoration poets and other "Tory" writers gradually distanced themselves from the Cavalier wits, Gould's works fell out of publication and public consciousness. Because his satires are sexually frank and exceptionally vicious, he was wholly unacceptable to the Victorian era
critics who attempted literary histories and were responsible for the twentieth century's canon formation in literature. At the end of the twentiethth century, his name was revived as an example solely of "subliterary misogyny" by feminist
literary critics such as Felicity Nussbaum, whose The Brink of All We Hate held out Gould's most scabrous satires (and almost exclusively Love Given O'er and the passage quoted above) as typical of an unpreserved tradition of misogyny
. There remains one biography of Gould (by Eugene Sloan) and no contemporary edition of his works.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
Lady
The word lady is a polite term for a woman, specifically the female equivalent to, or spouse of, a lord or gentleman, and in many contexts a term for any adult woman...
and that his job was as a footman
Footman
A footman is a male servant, notably as domestic staff.-Word history:The name derives from the attendants who ran beside or behind the carriages of aristocrats, many of whom were chosen for their physical attributes. They ran alongside the coach to make sure it was not overturned by such obstacles...
. By the age of twenty, however, he had entered the employ of Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset
Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset
Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset and 1st Earl of Middlesex was an English poet and courtier.-Early Life:He was son of Richard Sackville, 5th Earl of Dorset...
. Dorset was known for his libertine lifestyle and his patronage of the arts, and Gould possibly learned to read and write and was afforded books to read while in Dorset's employ. He appears to have moved to the pantry side of domestic service.
Poetry
Gould began his poetic career with a number of odeOde
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...
s to peers, and his odes to ladies are particularly stylized and idealistic. In the seventeenth century, a writer of an ode could expect remuneration, either in the form of a gift or, at the least, a higher fee from the bookseller in anticipation of sales to the flattered subject's supporters and family. Gould did sell his odes, but he appears to have made very little by them. In 1683, however, Gould changed employers and made a name for himself as an author by writing Love Given O'er: Or a Satyr on the Inconstancy of Woman. The poem was at least partially an imitation of Juvenal, but it pursued its theme of misogyny with a fury and detail even Juvenal would not have dared.
It featured nearly pornographic detail. For example, Gould complains of the lust
Lust
Lust is an emotional force that is directly associated with the thinking or fantasizing about one's desire, usually in a sexual way.-Etymology:The word lust is phonetically similar to the ancient Roman lustrum, which literally meant "purification"...
of women thus,
"And now, if so much to the World’s reveal’d,
Reflect on the vast store that lies conceal’d.
How, oft, into their Closets they retire,
Where flaming Dil– does inflame desire,
And gentle Lap-d--s feed the am’rous fire.
How curst is Man! when Brutes his Rivals prove,
Ev’n in the sacred business of his Love!
Unless Religion pious thoughts instil
Shew me the Woman that would not be ill,
If she, conveniently, cou’d have her will?" (lines 114-123)
These lines are less scathing than the repetition of the anecdote of the Ephesian lady (from Juvenal) who would meet her lovers at her husband's tomb, the statement that women envy the greatness of Eve
Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve were, according to the Genesis creation narratives, the first human couple to inhabit Earth, created by YHWH, the God of the ancient Hebrews...
's sin, and that a prostitute is far better than a wife, since she only damns the soul, while a wife will damn the soul and destroy all happiness. The poem is a merging of many tropes that were well established attacks on womankind before Gould, and the poem is programmatic in that it takes up the pride, then inconstancy, then lust of women (exactly as its title dictates). However, there is a remarkable amount of invention and specificity in each section, and those topoi he adapts from Classical and other poetry are always given a Restoration application. The particular vehemence in these scourges, along with the relentless pacing of the critique, make the poem stand out in its age and as an epitome of misogyny.
The poem sold extremely well and prompted a verse epistle battle from pretended "Sylvia"s ("Sylvia" having spurned the poet, he vows to be quit of love) who would offer to defend women from Gould's cruelty and pretended "answers" from the author of Love Given O'er (even though few of the "Sylvia" poems were by women, and only one of the "answer" poems was by Gould (a year after the publication of the Love Given O'er)) (Sloan). Gould enjoyed a high profile, and in the same year, 1683, Gould was employed by James Bertie, 1st Earl of Abingdon
James Bertie, 1st Earl of Abingdon
James Bertie, 1st Earl of Abingdon was an English nobleman.Bertie was the eldest son of Montagu Bertie, 2nd Earl of Lindsey by his second wife Bridget Bertie , 4th Baroness Norreys, suo jure Lady Norreys. He succeeded his mother as 5th Baron Norreys on the latter's death, c. 1657...
.
If Abingdon was not the one who encouraged the poem's composition, he at least enjoyed having the celebrated poet in his household. At around this time, Gould also became a friend of Fleetwood Sheppard
Fleetwood Sheppard
Fleetwood Sheppard was a British courtier and literary wit who was instrumental in the courts of Charles II of England and William of Orange...
's, who appeared to treat the poet with great generosity. The next poems from Gould continued the misogyny of Love Given O'er (e.g. A Satyr on Wooing, Epistle to One Made Unhappy in Marriage, A Scourge for Ill Wives, inter al.) and attempted to broaden out the satire into an attack on human vanity in particular and mankind in general. Gould's A Satyr on Mankind was, in its own day, noted for its excellence, and Alexander Pope
Alexander 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...
paraphrases it. Additionally, Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
uses some of the same satirical figures, and it is likely that both authors had read Gould in the 1709 version of his poems. Also in 1683 (on June 17), Gould married Martha Roderick, and the two would later have a daughter named Hannah. Between 1683 and 1689, Gould produced a number of satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
s, some of them providing unique insight into the English Restoration
English Restoration
The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
. Satyr Upon the Play-House (1688), for example, attacked the parentage and pretense of Elizabeth Barry
Elizabeth Barry
Elizabeth Barry was an English actress of the Restoration period.She worked in big, prestigious London theatre companies throughout her successful career: from 1675 in the Duke's Company, 1682 – 1695 in the monopoly United Company, and from 1695 onwards as a member of the actors' cooperative...
and Thomas Betterton
Thomas Betterton
Thomas Patrick Betterton , English actor, son of an under-cook to King Charles I, was born in London.-Apprentice and actor:...
, as well as the dissipate, drunken, whoring patrons of the theater. It records the life of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
around Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
, complete with demobbed soldiers, thieves, prostitutes, and the nobility who only cover their filth in gold, cosmetics, and perfumes. He also produced a few topical satires, such as To Julian, Secretary of the Muses, which attacks an anonymous lampoon
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
author and gives specific detail about the personalities and personages of some of the dramatists of the day. He even wrote a poem in honor of a retarded
Mental retardation
Mental retardation is a generalized disorder appearing before adulthood, characterized by significantly impaired cognitive functioning and deficits in two or more adaptive behaviors...
villager of Lavington before, two years later, writing a violent attack on the stupidity and obdurancy of all the "simple folk" of the country.
By 1689, Gould had been employed by Abingdon on his estates in West Lavington, Wiltshire
West Lavington, Wiltshire
West Lavington is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England.West Lavington is located on the A360 road between Devizes and Salisbury in Wiltshire, five miles south of Devizes. The village was originally known as Bishops' Lavington....
in some capacity other than as a domestic. In that year, Gould published Poems, Mostly Satyrs. The book was a last-chance effort at financial independence for Gould, and it appears to have succeeded. Gould left domestic service and, with the help of Abingdon, became a teacher full time in West Lavington. However, the year after the publication of Poems, Gould engaged in a bitter exchange with the Poet Laureate
Poet Laureate
A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...
, John Dryden
John Dryden
John Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.Walter Scott called him "Glorious John." He was made Poet...
. Gould was infuriated by Dryden's change of religion, and his Jack Squab (a reference to the Laureate being paid with food as well as brandy) was one of the most vicious (and uncharacteristically crude, for Gould) attacks made on Dryden. The poem is only attributed to Gould on slim evidence, as there are figures of speech and metaphors in it that closely resemble those employed by Gould in The Play-House, but it was not collected into his later Works (1709) and is unusually directed at a single public figure (where Gould's previous habit had been to attack a sin and provide numerous examples of it rather than to devote a whole poem to the viciousness of a single person).
After 1692 and the second edition of Poems, mostly Satyrs, Gould did not publish again until his death (excepting The Rival Sisters, see below). Having left the household of a peer and having left London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Gould had few occasions for urbane satires. However, the profession of school master apparently left the author with time for revision, for during the two decades that followed, he revised and edited and supplemented his poems extensively. In 1709, Martha Gould, Robert's wife, had Works of Robert Gould published. Robert Gould himself died in January of 1709 (1708 in the Old Style), before the volume's publication. However, the text of the Works has high authority, and every element of the volume appears to have been carefully set by the author. The Satyr on Mankind and Satyr on the Play House, in particular, were vastly rewritten.
As a tragedian
Gould also wrote tragedyTragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
. His first tragedy, Innocence Distress'd, was never performed. He took it to the United Company soon after writing it, in 1689. Thomas Betterton was the de facto manager of the theater, and Elizabeth Barry was one of the star actresses. Whether Gould had offended them prior to Satyr on the Play House or not, the two stars would not give him any aid after it. In October of 1695, Gould's second tragedy, The Rival Sisters, was performed at Drury Lane, even though, again, Betterton and Barry opposed it. (By that time, Gould says in the introduction to the 1709 Works, Betterton had forgiven him, but Barry remained obstinate. Therefore, in the 1709 Works, Gould adds another section of the Satyr on the Play House just for Barry and lessens the invective against Betterton.) The tragedy had music by Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...
, and it was a moderate success by the standards of that troubled year. (See Restoration drama for more on the crises of 1695.)
Style and literary importance
In content, Gould was a sincere, harsh Royalist. In his satires, the families and ancestors of living noblemen are ridiculed viciously, if they took the Cromwellian side in the English Civil WarEnglish Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
. Additionally, Gould not only asserts Church of England
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...
positions, but he has nothing but vitriol for radical Protestants, from Richard Baxter
Richard Baxter
Richard Baxter was an English Puritan church leader, poet, hymn-writer, theologian, and controversialist. Dean Stanley called him "the chief of English Protestant Schoolmen". After some false starts, he made his reputation by his ministry at Kidderminster, and at around the same time began a long...
to George Fox
George Fox
George Fox was an English Dissenter and a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends.The son of a Leicestershire weaver, Fox lived in a time of great social upheaval and war...
onward. His attacks on ladies and lords show all the marks of estrangement. They are attacked for being less than they would appear. Gould appeared to believe that the nobility should be, in fact, better than the general run of mankind. It is the lie that enrages him most, with betrayal being next in his catalog of sins to lash.
Stylistically, Robert Gould's poetry looks forward somewhat to the poetry of the 1710s. He was the friend of John Oldham
John Oldham (poet)
John Oldham was an English satirical poet and translator.-Life and work:Oldham was born in Shipton Moyne, Gloucestershire, the son of John Oldham, a non-conformist minister, and grandson of John Oldham the staunch anti-papist rector of Shipton Moyne and before that of Long Newton in Wiltshire...
, and there is some similarity in poetic forms. He was also a friend of Fleetwood Shepheard, addressing several poems to him. Shepheard was a confidante to Matthew Prior
Matthew Prior
Matthew Prior was an English poet and diplomat.Prior was the son of a Nonconformist joiner at Wimborne Minster, East Dorset. His father moved to London, and sent him to Westminster School, under Dr. Busby. On his father's death, he left school, and was cared for by his uncle, a vintner in Channel...
and Thomas Rymer
Thomas Rymer
Thomas Rymer , English historiographer royal, was the younger son of Ralph Rymer, lord of the manor of Brafferton in Yorkshire, described by Clarendon as possessed of a good estate, who was executed for his share in the Presbyterian rising of 1663.-Early life and education:Thomas Rymer was born at...
, and Shepheard gave both financial aid to Gould and personal friendship (Sloan). He wrote almost exclusively in closed heroic couplet
Heroic couplet
A heroic couplet is a traditional form for English poetry, commonly used for epic and narrative poetry; it refers to poems constructed from a sequence of rhyming pairs of iambic pentameter lines. The rhyme is always masculine. Use of the heroic couplet was first pioneered by Geoffrey Chaucer in...
s. Other than Dryden, whose poetic output was lowering, few poets of the 1680s are well preserved, and Gould occupies an interesting position. He is a generation younger than the primary Restoration wits (Dryden, Rochester, Buckingham) and younger even than Aphra Behn
Aphra Behn
Aphra Behn was a prolific dramatist of the English Restoration and was one of the first English professional female writers. Her writing contributed to the amatory fiction genre of British literature.-Early life:...
. His is the first Restoration generation, and he had only stories about the Interregnum
Interregnum
An interregnum is a period of discontinuity or "gap" in a government, organization, or social order...
. He is additionally unique in the literature of the Restoration in being a servant who composed poetry. While the Restoration had many figures who rose from common, or even poor, families, Gould used his writing to win his independence in the most literal way. His pen earned him a profession other than servitude and enabled him to escape a menial life, and, at the same time, allowed him to treat wealthy and established figures on an even footing.
Although Gould was apparently well known to his own and the next two generations of poets, his reputation was virtually erased in the nineteenth century. By the 1730s, when Alexander Pope began to reject the "licentious" Restoration poets and other "Tory" writers gradually distanced themselves from the Cavalier wits, Gould's works fell out of publication and public consciousness. Because his satires are sexually frank and exceptionally vicious, he was wholly unacceptable to the Victorian era
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
critics who attempted literary histories and were responsible for the twentieth century's canon formation in literature. At the end of the twentiethth century, his name was revived as an example solely of "subliterary misogyny" by feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
literary critics such as Felicity Nussbaum, whose The Brink of All We Hate held out Gould's most scabrous satires (and almost exclusively Love Given O'er and the passage quoted above) as typical of an unpreserved tradition of misogyny
Misogyny
Misogyny is the hatred or dislike of women or girls. Philogyny, meaning fondness, love or admiration towards women, is the antonym of misogyny. The term misandry is the term for men that is parallel to misogyny...
. There remains one biography of Gould (by Eugene Sloan) and no contemporary edition of his works.