The life and works of James Miller, 1704-1744, with particular reference to the satiric content of his poetry and plays.
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James Miller was born the son of a Dorset rector in 1704. He
was himself ordained, but acquired no benefice until just before his
early death, probably because of a scathing portrayal of the Bishop
of London in one of his verse satires. At Oxford he wrote a vivacious
comedy of humours, set in the University. Its production in 1730
began his dramatic career, at a time when the number of London
theatres had just doubled, and new dramatic forms were being invented.
In 1731 his poem Harlequin-Horace, a witty inversion of
the Ars Poetica, attacked pantomime and opera, but also painted a
lively portrait of the entire theatrical world, in the tradition of
the Dunciad.
After collaborating in a translation of Moliere's works Miller
wrote two plays based on this author. Of all his dramatic works
these were the most successful with his contemporaries, and were
followed by a modernisation of Much Ado, and a ballad-opera adapted
from an afterpiece by Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, and rendered highly
topical. Miller made similar use of a recent French comedy showing
a Red Indian's reactions to civilisation, a satiric "fable" by Walsh
and Voltaire's Mahomet. A large quantity of original material was
incorporated into most of these, and this is generally satirical in
nature. The Indian is made to voice almost egalitarian sentiments.
An afterpiece, "The Camp Visitants", satirised military inaction
in the war, and was apparently banned. The manuscripts of the six
plays produced after the Licensing Act bear the examiner's deletions,
and illustrate the nature of the censorship at this time.
Miller's greatest strength is probably his flexible, vigorously
colloquial dialogue. His political satire is mostly contained in
the poetry, which attacks Walpole's administration with increasing
vehemence through the seventeen-thirties, until its fall. In 1740
two poems that used Pope in symbolic contrast to Walpole caused a
sensation. In both poetry and plays Miller is also a social satirist,
who lays unusually strong emphasis on false taste and the deterioration
of culture.
Authors
O'Brien, Paula JoanCollections
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