John Dyer
Grongar Hill[edit] Grongar Hill was Dyer’s first published work originally appearing in Richard Savage’s Miscellaneous Poems and Translations by Several Hands 1726 written in irregular ode in Pindaric style about Dyer’s study of nature and as a tribute to his ancestral familial Wales estate. In the same year, after having received much acclaim, Dyer rewrote the 150-line piece in a loose measure of four cadences in octosyllabic couplets like Milton’s L’Allegro and like Alexander Pope’s Windsor Forest. The rhymes and grammar in Grongar Hill are uncertain but this was his best and most recognized work that captured the style of Romanticism. Like his fascination and background in landscape paintings, Dyer worked outside of the trend of political oriented work and focused his concerns with the countryside landscape of his time – namely the colors and visual perspective as a trained painter, thus as a landscape poet. The Ruins of Rome[edit] The Ruins of Rome was a less successful descriptive poem in 545 lines of Miltonic blank-verse, chronicling the disappointing natural scenery of the naked Italian mountains and muddy rivers, as written in the opening lines. Dyer writes as a historical poet but lacks generality and emotion. Belinda Humfrey simplifies the structure of Grongar Hill and The Ruins of Rome relating the narrative structures of both poems. She writes, “There is a climb to the top of a hill with reflections on the way and then, on reaching the top, a survey of the scenery all around, accompanied by some crowning reflections.” The Fleece[edit] The Fleece is a four-book blank-verse Georgic poem dealing with the tending of sheep, the shearing and preparation of the wool, weaving, and trade in woolen manufactures. The epic was written in a lofty manner, inclusive of a moral and patriotic material for the point is made that England has a respect for trade and consequently prospers. On a more personal level, he reflects on the benefits that trade will bring to him. The Fleece failed to gain recognition. Other poems[edit] “Written at Ocriculum” “The Country Walk” “The Happy Disappointment” “To Aurelia” “The Enquiry” “To Clio, from Rome” (metrical exercise) “Written at Ocriculum in Italy, 1725” “Occasioned by the Behavior of some of the Hereford Clergy, 1728” “A Epistle to a Friend in Town” (1729) “Cambro-Briton” (1737, unfinished)