SOURCE: DeFord, Miriam Allen. “Verse Satire and Polemics.” In Thomas Moore,pp. 55-66. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1967.

In the following essay, DeFord considers the quality of Moore's satirical poetry and examines the targets of his attacks.

I the Topical Versifier

It is doubtful if Moore ever understood entirely the exact nature of his talent. His enormous popularity justified him in his own mind as an aspirant to the first rank of English poetry: he had heard himself acclaimed often enough as the supreme English poet of his day. He knew in his more objective moments that he had not attained that rank and never could attain it. Still, he was apt to deprecate the very things that he could do better than any of his contemporaries—light, sentimental poems to be sung, and pungent irony and satire in verse. With the latter—though he was likely to slip...