The Porcupine's Quill
Celebrating forty years on the Main Street
of Erin Village, Wellington County
BOOKS IN PRINT
The Lover's Progress by David Solway
‘David Solway opts for a bawdier approach to the lyric in The Lover’s Progress. He models his lyric sequence on William Hogarth’s famous series of paintings, The Rake’s Progress (1733-35), and transports the rakish protagonist at the centre of Hogarth’s narrative into the twenty-first century. Solway makes the rake a ‘‘cruiser’’ of bars, women, and philosophies, as well as a dabbler in poetry. Perpetually in motion, the lover travels from Canada to Greece and revisits many of Solway’s favourite haunts.’
Between 1733 and 1735 William Hogarth produced a series of paintings and engravings under the title of A Rake’s Progress which became perhaps his best known and most admired work. In this sequence he told a story of a young parvenu who, having inherited a fortune, resolves to emulate the stereotypical profligate and arranges his life according to the standard formula. When the dust settles we are left with a cautionary tale curiously neutralized, to some extent, by an extraordinary profusion of choreographic detail and an astonishing technical virtuosity, compelling delight and approval (or possibly resistance) in the aesthetic rather than the moral dimension.
Motivated by Hogarth’s example, David Solway tells the story of a representative figure, a lover, of our own anarchic era which is in some ways very similar to the dissolute and ostentatious period the painter anatomized. Solway has equipped the lover with a sketchy CV: he is an inveterate traveller -- or perhaps ‘cruiser’ is a better word -- and diarist with an introspective bent, but he is also a confirmed voluptuary prone to distraction and not without a streak of coarseness in his nature.
Illustrations detailing critical moments in the lover’s career have been contributed by renowned Montréal artist Marion Wagschal.
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‘David Solway opts for a bawdier approach to the lyric in The Lover’s Progress. He models his lyric sequence on William Hogarth’s famous series of paintings, The Rake’s Progress (1733-35), and transports the rakish protagonist at the centre of Hogarth’s narrative into the twenty-first century. Solway makes the rake a ‘‘cruiser’’ of bars, women, and philosophies, as well as a dabbler in poetry. Perpetually in motion, the lover travels from Canada to Greece and revisits many of Solway’s favourite haunts. The collection begins with a fascinating essay in which Solway explains the rationale for this globe-trotting, as well as suggesting continuities between the style of the poetry and paintings.’
—Canadian Literature
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‘... poems, which are lovely, tender, and spun with the hands of a master.’
—Books in Canada
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‘Solway’s touch is intricate, humorous, restless, conciliatory and coherent. And he works an artful magic.’
—Montreal Gazette
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‘Formal poetry [that] ... is as wise, as tirelessly effortless, as lyrically exquisite, and as moving as Solway’s.’
—Books in Canada
David Solway is the author of many books of poetry including the award-winning Modern Marriage, Bedrock, Chess Pieces, Saracen Island: The Poetry of Andreas Karavis and The Lover’s Progress: Poems after William Hogarth, the latter illustrated by Marion Wagschal and adapted for the stage by Curtain Razors. His work has been anthologized in The Penguin Book of Canadian Verse, McClelland and Stewart’s New Canadian Poetry, Border Lines: Contemporary Poetry in English from Copp Clark, and The Bedford Introduction to Literature from St. Martin’s Press. Among his publications, Education Lost won the QSPELL Prize for Nonfiction and Random Walks was a finalist for Le Grand Prix du Livre de Montréal, while his poetry collection Franklin’s Passage won the prize. Solway publishes regularly in such journals as The Atlantic Monthly and Canadian Notes & Queries, and is an occasional contributor to the book pages of the National Post. His more specialized writings have appeared in the International Journal of Applied Semiotics, Policy Options: Institute on Research in Public Policy, and the Journal of Modern Greek Studies. Solway recently completed a new collection of poems entitled The Properties of Things and in the past three years has published two political books, The Big Lie: On Terror, Antisemitism and Identity and Hear, O Israel!. David Solway writes regularly for FrontPage Magazine and Pajamas Media, and is a contributing editor for The Metropolitan and Arts & Opinion.
The Porcupine's Quill would like to acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. The financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) is also gratefully acknowledged.
