Night (Ralph poem)
| Night, a Poem in Four Books | |
|---|---|
| by James Ralph | |
.png) Title page (London, 1728) | |
| Country | Great Britain |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Blank‑verse meditation |
| Publisher | Printed for J. Roberts |
| Publication date | 1728 |
| Lines | 1,100 (4 books) |
Night, a Poem in Four Books is a book‑length blank‑verse meditation by the English poet and satirist James Ralph, published in London on 10 January 1728.[1] A companion to his earlier poem The Tempest (1727), it reflects on urban corruption, mortality, and nocturnal imagery in a style influenced by James Thomson’s seasonal verse. Although Ralph invokes Milton in the preface, the poem’s unrhymed pentameter more closely resembles Thomson’s descriptive blank verse.[2]
Publication
[edit]The quarto imprint lists J. Roberts in Warwick‑Lane as publisher; copies sold for one shilling. Unlike many Grub‑Street pieces of the period, the pamphlet openly credits its author on the title page.[1] A second issue with reset preliminaries appeared the same year.[3]
Structure and themes
[edit]Divided into four books, Night draws on the graveyard tradition and the meditative style of Thomson’s Winter (1726) and Summer (1727) to dramatize London after dark. Ralph blends classical allusions with scenes from the American colonies—Niagara Falls, the West Indies—while exploring death, commerce, and moral decay; Elizabeth R. McKinsey additionally reads the poem as a Whig “ancient‑liberty” allegory, likening London’s corruption to a Spanish‑style conquest of a New‑World Eden and turning blank verse into a vehicle for civic alarm.[2][4]
Reception
[edit]Alexander Pope mocked the poem in Book II of the 1735 Dunciad Variorum:
“Silence, ye Wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls,
And makes Night hideous.”[5]
Pope’s mockery cemented Ralph’s standing as a Grub‑Street hack, yet modern scholars see Night quite differently. McKinsey, for instance, calls Ralph a co‑leader—alongside Thomson—of the eighteenth‑century revival of blank verse, noting that “in the late 1720s only Ralph and Thomson were experimenting in blank verse.”[6]
Legacy
[edit]Though Ralph continued to publish poetry after Night, critics—contemporaries and modern alike—generally saw this work as the culmination of his poetic ambitions.[2] Imagery from the poem, including references to “midnight magazines of Sin,” later reappeared in his political journalism, such as his writing for The Champion.[7]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b ESTC 2025.
- ^ a b c Kenny 1940, pp. 220–221.
- ^ Okie 1967, p. 378.
- ^ McKinsey 1973, pp. 60, 65.
- ^ Pope 1735, p. 34.
- ^ McKinsey 1973, p. 63.
- ^ Harris 1993, p. 36.
Sources
[edit]- ESTC (2025). English Short‑Title Catalogue entry T43086 (Night, a Poem in Four Books). British Library.
- Harris, Bob (1993). A Patriot Press: National Politics and the London Press in the 1740s. Oxford University Press. p. 36.
- Kenny, Robert W. (1940). "James Ralph: An Eighteenth-Century Philadelphian in Grub Street". The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. 64 (2): 218–242. JSTOR 20087279. Retrieved 20 July 2025.
- McKinsey, Elizabeth R. (1973). "James Ralph: The Professional Writer Comes of Age". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 117 (1): 57–66. JSTOR 985948. Retrieved 20 July 2025.
- Okie, Laird (1967). "James Ralph: An Eighteenth‑Century Professional Writer". Huntington Library Quarterly. 30 (4): 874–875.
- Pope, Alexander (1735). The Dunciad, Variorum Edition. Lintot. p. 34.
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