SOURCE: "Gay's Trivia and the Art of Allusion," in Studies in Philology, Vol. LXXV, No. 2, 1978, pp. 199-222.

In the following essay, Ames makes a case for Gay's often-unrecognized skill with classical allusion, comparing his Trivia with John Dryden's translation of Virgil's Georgics. Ames argues that Gay's burlesque, with its unassuming tone, better approximates the classical originals.

Few studies of John Gay's poetry accord him the full praise he merits as a master of the poetry of classical allusion. Recently, in "John Gay: Lightweight or Heavyweight?" (Scriblerian, VIII [1975]), Arthur Sherbo has even indicated that in the last five years there has, in fact, been an hiatus in Gay scholarship altogether. And yet, Sherbo's 1970 essay, "Virgil, Dryden, Gay, and Matters Trivial" (PMLA, LXXXV), like Martin Battestin's earlier "Menalcas' Song: The Meaning of Art and Artifice in Gay's Poetry" (JEGP, LXV [1966]), had made a compelling plea for our recognition of Gay's...