SOURCE: "The Direction of Young's Thoughts," in Preromanticism, Stanford University Press, 1991, pp. 34-9.

In the following excerpt from his study of Preromanticism, Brown gives an overview of Young, focusing on his Night Thoughts and locating him in the literary tradition.

…Nowhere is the musing character of eighteenth-century consciousness more apparent than in Young's Night Thoughts. Young gives us, consequently, the best occasion for considering the direction and purpose of an apparently aimless meander. Though few today would dare to call this poem "captivating," as Percival Stockdale did early in the nineteenth century (Lectures 1: 587), and though Young's writing is relatively free from conventional poetic diction, it would be a mistake to overlook his urbanity. The poem is not a silent meditation, but rather a long monologue addressed to a reprobate named Lorenzo, and Young is careful to vary the pacing, to lighten the tone with ironic sallies, and to...