sewn paper
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Poetry
September 2001
76 pages
ISBN 0-88984-229-9
$14.95
The Lover's Progress
David Solway
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.
`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.' `... poems, which are lovely, tender, and spun with the hands
of a master.' `Solway's touch is intricate, humorous, restless, conciliatory and
coherent. And he works an artful magic.' `formal poetry [that] ... is as wise, as tirelessly
effortless, as lyrically exquisite, and as moving as Solway's.'
- Canadian Literature
- Books in Canada
- Montreal Gazette
- Books in Canada
