The Battle of The Books - Reuse of The Trope

Reuse of The Trope

Swift's Battle owed a great deal to Boileau's Le Lutrin, although it was not a translation. Instead, it was an English work based on the same premise. However, John Ozell attempted to answer Swift with his translation of Le Lutrin, where the battle sees Tory authors skewered by Whigs. This prompted a satire of Ozell by Swift and by Alexander Pope. Further, other "battles of the books" appeared after Swift's. Often, these were merely political attacks, as in the later Battel of the Poets (1729, by Edward Cooke), which was an attack on Alexander Pope. As a set piece or topos of 18th century satire, the "Battle of the Books" was a standard, short-hand for both the Quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns and the era of Swift's battle with William Wotton.