ABSTRACT
The Augustan man of letters, on the whole, escaped this dilemma. The confidence with which Wordsworth outlines the role of the poet, for example, depends on the enlarged authority which the professional author achieved after the Restoration. The picture is travestied, of course, but it is not absolutely without foundation. The fictional warfare dramatises a major social cleavage. It is the classic encounter between creative artist and producer. A pedant has been replaced by a literary organization man. The change is of great significance, for the poem is fixed all the more directly on the onset of official 'Dulness' as a by-product of Hanoverian torpor. Individuals and groups may have experienced a time when they considered themselves unfairly excluded; this is the basis for the outcry of the 1730s against Walpole, because of his alleged shift of patronage to low journalists and newsmongers.
