Post 2- John Wilkes

John Wilkes was born in England during the year 1725, and died in England during 1797 (Christie). He had crossed eyes and bad teeth and secretly sent money to the Americas during the Revolutionary War (Cash 2). He was also part of a hellfire club dedicated to debauchery, which may in turn have led to his participation in writing An Essay on Woman (Cash 32-33), which contributed to efforts to expel him from parliament and imprison him, which he responded to by leaving England for Paris (Christie). Suffice it to say that from there he was faced with more crimes, re elected to parliament, and eventually distanced himself from those libertine attitudes which make his glory days so interesting.

John Wilkes, as one may glean, was not exactly dedicated to poetry so much as politics. This complicates the construction of both a bibliography and a publication history. Nonetheless, he is mostly known for co-authoring An Essay on Woman which was an erotic parody of Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man. While some reports indicate only several copies were initially printed (Christie), a scan of a copy printed for James Hay states it was in fact “Sold by all booksellers in town and country.”(Wilkes, An Essay 1) A prominent, more recent edition of the work was published in 2000 by AMS Press, noteworthy for juxtaposing the parody against its intertext (Wilkes, An Essay [AMS Press]). In addition to this strange piece, one can also find some poetry Wilkes composed in a multi-volume publication of his letters (Wilkes, Letters). These poems do not appear to have any publishing history that is worth noting.

Including John Wilkes’ poetry in an anthology should not be done for the quality of his poetry, but rather for the sake of his poetry’s significance as a primary text in the context of his strange life. Wilkes carved a path which made him a voice against cruel authority, standing in favor of causes which got him into great legal troubles. While all of this does not necessarily make him a good person, and it is certainly wise to approach his writing with a critical eye, the close relationship he had with the struggles of his time lends his writing an inherent weight which should not go unmentioned in an anthology.

As far as particular works are concerned, there are several viable options. An Essay On Woman has been named by several scholars as “The most notorious poem of the decade” in which it was published (Schurer 477). This, in addition to the fact that it stands as an example of parody and an interesting instance of eighteenth century erotica make it prime to be anthologized (although some retrograde perspectives on women may justifiably disincline one to include such a work). Alternatively, those poems titled “Epitaph on Miss H. Wilke’s Owl Peter”(207), “On the Reverse of a Watch Presented to Miss Wilkes” (208), and “A Well-Known Character [Mr. Garrick]”(191) are excellent options for inclusion (all taken from Wilkes, Letters). The first two present an intimate look at the relationship Wilkes had with one of his daughters, and the latter offers some insight into the way Wilkes viewed a contemporary playwright. Ultimately, the function of these poems in an anthology would be to offer insight into the life and perspective of a figure who was at the center of some crucial conflicts in the eighteenth century.

Works Cited

Cash, Arthur H. John Wilkes : The Scandalous Father of Civil Liberty. Yale University Press, 2006. EBSCOhost, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=187989&site=ehost-live.

Christie, Ian R. “John Wilkes.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica Inc, 2019. https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Wilkes.

Schurer, Norbert. "British Erotica Before and After 1700." Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 37 no. 3, 2004, p. 474-478. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/ecs.2004.0034.

Wilkes, John. An Essay On Woman. Aberdeen, Printed for James Hay, 1788. Hathitrust Digital Library. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.31175035206336.

---, et al. An Essay on Woman. AMS Press, 2000.

---. Letters, from the year 1774 to the year 1796, of John Wilkes, esq., addressed to his daughter, the late Miss Wilkes : with a collection of his miscellaneous poems. To which is prefixed a memoir of the life of Mr. Wilkes. In four volumes. Vol. 1, Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme; J. Hatchard; and A. Constable and Co. Edinburgh, 1804. pp.190-210. The Making of the Modern World, https://link-gale-com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/apps/doc/U0109768840/MOME?u=umd_um&sid=MOME&xid=9577dd80. Accessed 23 Feb. 2020.