Thomas Cooke (author)
Encyclopedia
Thomas Cooke often called "Hesiod" Cooke, was a very active English
translator and author who ran afoul of Alexander Pope
and was mentioned as one of the "dunces" in Pope's Dunciad. His father was an inn keeper, and Cooke arrived in London
in 1722 and began working as a writer for the Whig
causes. He associated with Thomas Tickell
, Ambrose Philips
, Leonard Welsted
, Richard Steele
, and John Defnnis, and Cooke is the source of one of the primary biographies of John Dennis, which he wrote in Latin
. He was educated at Felsted
.
Cooke did a great deal of first-rate translation from Latin and Greek
. His first publication was an elegy on the death of the highly contentious Marlborough
in 1722. He followed that with a masque
entitled Albion in 1724. His most famous production was The Battle of the Poets in 1725
. This was a reworking of the trope of Le Lutrin that had been used by Jonathan Swift
in The Battle of the Books
. Where Swift had had classical authors and Tory authors sweeping the field of their whig and modern commentators, Cooke had "moderns" and whig authors defeating Alexander Pope and other "tory" authors. That same year, he published an essay in the Daily Journal examining the Thersites
section of Pope's Iliad
which showed many faults of translation. In 1726, he wrote The Bath, or, The Knights of the Bath. In 1728, Cooke demonstrated his command of Greek with the first translation of Hesiod
into English, and he became known as "Hesiod Cooke." The same year, he wrote an opera
with John Mottley
entitled Penelope.
Pope, therefore, developed a character of Cooke for Dunciad. Cooke heard about this and wrote two letters of apology. He appeared in Dunciad anyway. In response, Cooke reissued The Battle of the Poets and the Daily Journal essay in 1729 in his Tales, Epistles, Odes, Fables, &c. He also wrote several letters for the London Journal in 1729-1730 and issued those as a book dedicated to Horace Walpole (son of the divisive prime minister) in 1731. Pope took another jab at Cooke in his Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot in 1735 (l. 146).
Aside from his entry into the controversies with Pope, Cooke continued to publish. He produced an edition of Andrew Marvell
's poems. In 1731, he published The Triumphs of Love and Honour, with a long essay on the usefulness of the English stage. Later, he wrote a book of Odes, a Life of King Edward III of England in 1734, and essays for the Weekly Oracle on Phalaris
. In 1734, he produced a three volume translation of the plays of Terence
, and in 1737, he produced an edition of Cicero
's De natura deorum with an extensive critical apparatus. Also in 1737, he produced a play based on Terence called The Eunuch. Two years later, he wrote and published a play called The Mournful Nuptials which was not acted until 1741 (as Love the Cause and Cure of Grief). In 1741, he produced a partial translation of Virgil
, with notes.
In 1742, Cooke took part in Colley Cibber
's fight over control of the theaters. He wrote The Bays Miscellany, or, Colley Triumphant. He also wrote dialog for the mute plays of John Rich
and Cibber's Harlequin. In 1744, he adapted his Le Lutrin piece as The Battle of the Poets as a one-act play to be inserted into Henry Fielding
's Tom Thumb
. Finally, in 1754, he produced a single volume of a planned series of the works of Plautus
. He had gathered up an enormous subscription (713 names) for the publication, and this, in fact, furnished his living expenses.
Cooke was always short of funds and wrote to pay the bills. He was also decidedly political. In 1741 he edited an edition of The Craftsman, Bolingbroke's journal. In 1748, he was brought up on a libel charge for criticism he made of the Pelham administration. The same year, he also wrote a public letter encouraging religious toleration.
He died in poverty on 29 December 1756, leaving a wife named Anne and a daughter named Elizabeth. Elizabeth died two years later, in a workhouse
.
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
translator and author who ran afoul of 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...
and was mentioned as one of the "dunces" in Pope's Dunciad. His father was an inn keeper, and Cooke arrived in 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...
in 1722 and began working as a writer for the Whig
British Whig Party
The Whigs were a party in the Parliament of England, Parliament of Great Britain, and Parliament of the United Kingdom, who contested power with the rival Tories from the 1680s to the 1850s. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule...
causes. He associated with Thomas Tickell
Thomas Tickell
Thomas Tickell was a minor English poet and man of letters.-Life:The son of a clergyman, he was born at Bridekirk near Cockermouth, Cumberland. He was educated at St Bees School 1695-1701, and in 1701 entered the Queen's College, Oxford, taking his M.A. degree in 1709...
, Ambrose Philips
Ambrose Philips
-Life:He was born in Shropshire of a Leicestershire family. He was educated at Shrewsbury School and St John's College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow in 1699. He seems to have lived chiefly at Cambridge until he resigned his fellowship in 1708, and his pastorals were probably written in...
, Leonard Welsted
Leonard Welsted
Leonard Welsted was an English poet and "dunce" in Alexander Pope's writings . Welsted was an accomplished writer who composed in a relaxed, light hearted vein...
, Richard Steele
Richard Steele
Sir Richard Steele was an Irish writer and politician, remembered as co-founder, with his friend Joseph Addison, of the magazine The Spectator....
, and John Defnnis, and Cooke is the source of one of the primary biographies of John Dennis, which he wrote in 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...
. He was educated at Felsted
Felsted School
Felsted School, an English co-educational day and boarding independent school, situated in Felsted, Essex. It is in the British Public School tradition, and was founded in 1564 by Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich who, as Lord Chancellor and Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations, acquired...
.
Cooke did a great deal of first-rate translation from Latin and Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
. His first publication was an elegy on the death of the highly contentious Marlborough
John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough
John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, Prince of Mindelheim, KG, PC , was an English soldier and statesman whose career spanned the reigns of five monarchs through the late 17th and early 18th centuries...
in 1722. He followed that with a masque
Masque
The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment which flourished in 16th and early 17th century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio...
entitled Albion in 1724. His most famous production was The Battle of the Poets in 1725
1725 in literature
The year 1725 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Émilie de Breteuil marries Marquis Florent-Claude du Chastellet....
. This was a reworking of the trope of Le Lutrin that had been used by Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
in The Battle of the Books
The Battle of the Books
The Battle of the Books is the name of a short satire written by Jonathan Swift and published as part of the prolegomena to his A Tale of a Tub in 1704. It depicts a literal battle between books in the King's Library , as ideas and authors struggle for supremacy...
. Where Swift had had classical authors and Tory authors sweeping the field of their whig and modern commentators, Cooke had "moderns" and whig authors defeating Alexander Pope and other "tory" authors. That same year, he published an essay in the Daily Journal examining the Thersites
Thersites
In Greek mythology, Thersites was a soldier of the Greek army during the Trojan War. In the Iliad, he does not have a father's name, which may suggest that he should be viewed as a commoner rather than an aristocratic hero...
section of Pope's Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
which showed many faults of translation. In 1726, he wrote The Bath, or, The Knights of the Bath. In 1728, Cooke demonstrated his command of Greek with the first translation of Hesiod
Hesiod
Hesiod was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and...
into English, and he became known as "Hesiod Cooke." The same year, he wrote an opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
with John Mottley
John Mottley
John Mottley was an English writer, known as a dramatist, biographer, and compiler of jokes.-Life:He was the son of Colonel Thomas Mottley, a Jacobite adherent of James II in his exile, who entered the service of Louis XIV, and was killed at the battle of Turin in 1706; his mother was Dionisia,...
entitled Penelope.
Pope, therefore, developed a character of Cooke for Dunciad. Cooke heard about this and wrote two letters of apology. He appeared in Dunciad anyway. In response, Cooke reissued The Battle of the Poets and the Daily Journal essay in 1729 in his Tales, Epistles, Odes, Fables, &c. He also wrote several letters for the London Journal in 1729-1730 and issued those as a book dedicated to Horace Walpole (son of the divisive prime minister) in 1731. Pope took another jab at Cooke in his Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot in 1735 (l. 146).
Aside from his entry into the controversies with Pope, Cooke continued to publish. He produced an edition of Andrew Marvell
Andrew Marvell
Andrew Marvell was an English metaphysical poet, Parliamentarian, and the son of a Church of England clergyman . As a metaphysical poet, he is associated with John Donne and George Herbert...
's poems. In 1731, he published The Triumphs of Love and Honour, with a long essay on the usefulness of the English stage. Later, he wrote a book of Odes, a Life of King Edward III of England in 1734, and essays for the Weekly Oracle on Phalaris
Phalaris
Phalaris was the tyrant of Acragas in Sicily, from approximately 570 to 554 BC.-History:He was entrusted with the building of the temple of Zeus Atabyrius in the citadel, and took advantage of his position to make himself despot. Under his rule Agrigentum seems to have attained considerable...
. In 1734, he produced a three volume translation of the plays of Terence
Terence
Publius Terentius Afer , better known in English as Terence, was a playwright of the Roman Republic, of North African descent. His comedies were performed for the first time around 170–160 BC. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, brought Terence to Rome as a slave, educated him and later on,...
, and in 1737, he produced an edition of Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
's De natura deorum with an extensive critical apparatus. Also in 1737, he produced a play based on Terence called The Eunuch. Two years later, he wrote and published a play called The Mournful Nuptials which was not acted until 1741 (as Love the Cause and Cure of Grief). In 1741, he produced a partial translation of Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
, with notes.
In 1742, Cooke took part in Colley Cibber
Colley Cibber
Colley Cibber was an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber describes his life in a personal, anecdotal and even rambling style...
's fight over control of the theaters. He wrote The Bays Miscellany, or, Colley Triumphant. He also wrote dialog for the mute plays of John Rich
John Rich (producer)
John Rich was an important director and theatre manager in 18th century London. He opened the New Theatre at Lincoln's Inn Fields and then the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden and began putting on ever more lavish productions...
and Cibber's Harlequin. In 1744, he adapted his Le Lutrin piece as The Battle of the Poets as a one-act play to be inserted into Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the novel Tom Jones....
's Tom Thumb
Tom Thumb
Tom Thumb is a character of English folklore. The History of Tom Thumb was published in 1621, and has the distinction of being the first fairy tale printed in English. Tom is no bigger than his father's thumb, and his adventures include being swallowed by a cow, tangling with giants, and becoming a...
. Finally, in 1754, he produced a single volume of a planned series of the works of Plautus
Plautus
Titus Maccius Plautus , commonly known as "Plautus", was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest surviving intact works in Latin literature. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by the innovator of Latin literature, Livius Andronicus...
. He had gathered up an enormous subscription (713 names) for the publication, and this, in fact, furnished his living expenses.
Cooke was always short of funds and wrote to pay the bills. He was also decidedly political. In 1741 he edited an edition of The Craftsman, Bolingbroke's journal. In 1748, he was brought up on a libel charge for criticism he made of the Pelham administration. The same year, he also wrote a public letter encouraging religious toleration.
He died in poverty on 29 December 1756, leaving a wife named Anne and a daughter named Elizabeth. Elizabeth died two years later, in a workhouse
Workhouse
In England and Wales a workhouse, colloquially known as a spike, was a place where those unable to support themselves were offered accommodation and employment...
.