Summary:
{{Template}}
'''Namby Pamby''' is a term for affected, weak, and maudlin speech/verse. However, its origins are in '''''Namby Pamby''''' (1725), by [[Henry Carey (writer)|Henry Carey]].
Carey wrote the poem as a satire of [[Ambrose Philips]] and published it in his ''Poems on Several Occasions''. Its first publication was ''Namby Pamby: or, a panegyrick on the new versification address'd to A----- P----'', where the A-- P-- was Ambrose Philips. Philips had written a series of [[ode]]s in a new prosody of seven syllable lines and dedicated it to "all ages and characters, from [[Robert Walpole|Walpole]] ''sterrer of the realm'', to miss Pulteney in the nursery." This 3.5' line was a matter of consternation for more conservative poets, and a matter of mirth for Carey. Carey adopts Philips's choppy line form for his [[parody]] and latches onto the dedication to nurseries to create an apparent [[nursery rhyme]] that is, in fact, a grand bit of nonsense and satire mixed.
Philips was a figure who had become politically active and was a darling of the [[British Whig Party|Whig]] party. He was also a target of the [[Tory]] satirists. [[Alexander Pope]] had criticized Philips repeatedly (in [[The Guardian]] and in his ''[[Peri Bathos]]'', among other places), and praising or condemning Philips was a political as much as poetic matter in the 1720s, with the nickname also employed by [[John Gay]] and [[Jonathan Swift]].
The poem begins with a mock-epic opening (as had Pope's ''[[Rape of the Lock]]'' and as had [[John Dryden|Dryden's]] ''MacFlecknoe''), calling all the muses to witness the glory of Philips's prosodic reform:
:"All ye Poets of the Age!
:All ye Witlings of the Stage!
:Learn your Jingles to reform!
:Crop your Numbers and Conform:
:Let your little Verses flow
:Gently, Sweetly, Row by Row:
:Let the Verse the Subject fit;
:Little Subject, Little Wit.
:Namby-Pamby is your Guide;
:Albion's Joy, Hibernia's Pride."
Carey's ''Namby Pamby'' was an enormous success. It was so successful that people began to call Philips himself "Namby Pamby" (as, for example, in ''[[The Dunciad]]'' in 1727), as he had been renamed by the poem, and Carey was referred to as "Namby Pamby Carey." The poem sold well and has been used as children's literature since Carey's day.
==See also==
* [[1726 in poetry]]
{{GFDL}}
'''Namby Pamby''' is a term for affected, weak, and maudlin speech/verse. However, its origins are in '''''Namby Pamby''''' (1725), by [[Henry Carey (writer)|Henry Carey]].
Carey wrote the poem as a satire of [[Ambrose Philips]] and published it in his ''Poems on Several Occasions''. Its first publication was ''Namby Pamby: or, a panegyrick on the new versification address'd to A----- P----'', where the A-- P-- was Ambrose Philips. Philips had written a series of [[ode]]s in a new prosody of seven syllable lines and dedicated it to "all ages and characters, from [[Robert Walpole|Walpole]] ''sterrer of the realm'', to miss Pulteney in the nursery." This 3.5' line was a matter of consternation for more conservative poets, and a matter of mirth for Carey. Carey adopts Philips's choppy line form for his [[parody]] and latches onto the dedication to nurseries to create an apparent [[nursery rhyme]] that is, in fact, a grand bit of nonsense and satire mixed.
Philips was a figure who had become politically active and was a darling of the [[British Whig Party|Whig]] party. He was also a target of the [[Tory]] satirists. [[Alexander Pope]] had criticized Philips repeatedly (in [[The Guardian]] and in his ''[[Peri Bathos]]'', among other places), and praising or condemning Philips was a political as much as poetic matter in the 1720s, with the nickname also employed by [[John Gay]] and [[Jonathan Swift]].
The poem begins with a mock-epic opening (as had Pope's ''[[Rape of the Lock]]'' and as had [[John Dryden|Dryden's]] ''MacFlecknoe''), calling all the muses to witness the glory of Philips's prosodic reform:
:"All ye Poets of the Age!
:All ye Witlings of the Stage!
:Learn your Jingles to reform!
:Crop your Numbers and Conform:
:Let your little Verses flow
:Gently, Sweetly, Row by Row:
:Let the Verse the Subject fit;
:Little Subject, Little Wit.
:Namby-Pamby is your Guide;
:Albion's Joy, Hibernia's Pride."
Carey's ''Namby Pamby'' was an enormous success. It was so successful that people began to call Philips himself "Namby Pamby" (as, for example, in ''[[The Dunciad]]'' in 1727), as he had been renamed by the poem, and Carey was referred to as "Namby Pamby Carey." The poem sold well and has been used as children's literature since Carey's day.
==See also==
* [[1726 in poetry]]
{{GFDL}}