James Thomson, The Castle of Indolence

Adam White (The Open University)

Ed. by J. Derrick McClure, University of Aberdeen
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.3: Scottish Writing and Culture, 400-present.
Vol. editors: Kate Ash-Irisarri (University of Edinburgh), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Gina Lyle (University of Glasgow), J. Derrick McClure (University of Aberdeen), Andrew Radford (University of Glasgow)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1748

Places

Scotland (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Poetry (any)

Resources

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The Castle of Indolence

(1748) is, as the rest of its title―“An Allegorical Poem, Written in Imitation of Spenser”―indicates, a poem in Spenserian stanzas, and one of a number of eighteenth-century examples, including, for instance, William Shenstone’s

The School-Mistress

(1737) and James Beattie’s

The Minstrel

(1771).

The Castle of Indolence

is also comparable on its own terms to major developments in what can be termed the Romantic revival of the Spenserian stanza, particularly evident in works by Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and John Keats (whose use of the stanza in all cases post-dates Thomson’s, and may well have been influenced by his).

The Castle of Indolence is a peculiar blend of the moral and the imaginative in a stanza that is regarded as one of the most difficult

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3243 words

Citation: White, Adam. "The Castle of Indolence". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 18 July 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1355, accessed 20 April 2024.]

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