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Unit 10: The Augustan Age or the Triumph of Neoclassicism (Pope and Heroic Couplet, Poetic Diction and Satire)

Alexandrine Notes

Her lofty courser, in the court below,
Who his majestic rider seems to know,
Proud of his purple trappings, paws the ground,
And champs the golden bit, and spreads the foam around.
(ll. 190-193)

Alexandrine and Triplet

My Tyrians, at their injur’d queen’s command,
Had toss’d their fires amid the Trojan band;
At once extinguish’d all the faithless name;
And I myself, in vengeance of my shame,
Had fall’n upon the pile, to mend the fun’ral flame
(ll. 867-871)

10.3 Poetic Diction
Poetic diction means the choice and arrangement of words in a line of poetry. Thus it is a matter both
of vocabulary and syntax. In almost all ages, poets have used a language different from the language
of everyday use. It was believed that, “the language of the age is never the language of poetry”, and
further that the calling of a poet is a noble and exalted one and so his language also should be equally
noble and dignified, different from common language.
Thus it was considered necessary for a poet to avoid low, common and vulgar words, especially in
epic-poetry where the diction used should be lofty and sublime in keeping with its lofty and
exalted theme. For this reason, in all ages, the diction of poetry has tended to differ from the
language of prose, as well as from that of everyday speech. For example, in his Fairy Queen
Spenser intentionally used archaic and obsolete words, for his theme was medieval, and archaic
words like ‘methought’, ‘I ween’, etc., help to create a proper, old world atmosphere. Milton used
a highly Latinised and figurative diction for his Paradise Lost, and in this way sought to impart
epic dignity and elevation to his language. Milton had considerable influence on the succeeding
generation of poets, and this influence was not all healthy. Much that is artificial and unnatural in
the diction of the Augustan Age may be traced to Milton.
Though poets in every age have used a specialised diction for their poetry, never was such attention
paid to the subject as in the age of Dryden and Pope. The critical theory of the period laid great
stress on the need of ‘decorum’. ‘Decorum’ implied that the diction of poetry should be noble and
exalted, that it should suit the genre and the characters or personages in a piece of poetry, that the
low and the vulgar should be avoided as their use is below the dignity of the poet as well as that
of his readers, and lastly that there must be absolute economy in the use of words. The poet must
say what he had to say in the fewest and the best possible words. The best’ were the words which
enabled the poet to convey his meanings with absolute clarity, and with this end in view the use
of the archaic, the obsolete, the foreign and the technical words was to be avoided. The older poets
like Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare were guilty of such faults and it was felt, that they should
be refined and polished. They might be jewels but they were unpolished jewels, and it was their
misfortune to have lived and produced in a barbarous age.

Notes The Augustan Age, numerous efforts were made to refine Shakespeare, and many of
his poetic beauties were lost on the age.

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