Laurence Eusden
Laurence Eusden (c. 1688–1730) was an English poet who served as Poet Laureate of Great Britain from 1718 until his death.
St Catharine’s College, Cambridge: A constituent college of the University of Cambridge, founded in 1473. Eusden studied at this Cambridge college before beginning his literary career.
Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom: An official British poetic office whose holder produces verse for state and national occasions. Eusden held the earlier British laureateship from 1718 until 1730.
Colley Cibber: An English actor, playwright, and poet who served as Poet Laureate from 1730 to 1757. Cibber succeeded Eusden and became a more visible target of literary satire.
The Dunciad: Alexander Pope’s satirical poem attacking literary dullness and the writers and institutions he associated with it. Pope’s satire helped fix Eusden in the public imagination as a figure of poetic mediocrity.
University of Cambridge: A public research university in Cambridge, England, founded in 1209. Eusden’s education at St Catharine’s placed his early life within Cambridge’s scholarly world.
Ode: A formal lyric poem, often elevated in style and addressed to a person, event, or subject. Laureates commonly wrote odes for royal birthdays and public celebrations.
Alexander Pope: An English poet known for polished heroic couplets, satire, and translations of Homer. Pope’s ridicule helped shape Eusden’s later reputation as an uninspired laureate.
Alexander Pope’s literary criticism: Pope’s judgments of writers and literary culture, expressed through essays, letters, and satirical poetry. Pope’s judgments contributed more to Eusden’s afterlife than his own poems did.
John Dryden: An English poet, playwright, and literary critic who served as Poet Laureate from 1668 to 1688. Dryden established a prominent model of laureateship that preceded Eusden’s appointment.
George I of Great Britain: King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1714 until his death in 1727. Eusden’s official poems were produced during George I’s reign.