Edward Bysshe and The Art of English Poetry: Reading Writing in the Eighteenth Century

First published in 1702, Edward Bysshe's The Art of English Poetry presents us with the reading and associational world of an almost unknown man. Coming in three parts: "Rules," "A Dictionary," and "A Collection," The Art of English Poetry was the pre-eminent prosodic handbook, rhyming dictionary and dictionary of quotations of the eighteenth century, being expanded and reprinted nine times. This essay focuses in particular on "A Collection"—a commonplace book of literary quotations—showing its history, construction, and what it has to tell us about the reading habits of the 1690s and the early decades of the eighteenth century.