A Travelling Man: Eighteenth Century Essays

Donald Davie was a great critic of the 18th century, its literature, its religion and politics, its culture in the broadest sense, because he took his creative bearings from it. This is what makes him such an unusual poet; and this is why, when he writes about Berkeley, or Swift, or Goldsmith, Smart, Cowper, Doctor Johnson, the Augustan Lyric, the hymn writers, the Dissenters, diction and irony, he holds our attention the way a great teacher (which he was) can do. For him the act of critical engagement is a challenge to all the vigours of the mind and spirit, and he makes accessible areas of our culture which Romanticism and lazy reading have fenced off as dull, closed areas. The fact is that Romanticism draws its energies not only from reaction against the 18th century, but also from a deep engagement with it. Many of his earliest essays, especially those written in Dublin, the city of Berkeley, Goldsmith and Swift, were rooted in the 18th century and its abiding gifts.