Ambrose Philips

Philips, Ambrose

Philips, Ambrose (1674–1749), English dramatist, son of a draper in Shrewsbury, well educated, and a member of Addison's circle. His chief claim to fame is that in The Distrest Mother (1712), an adaptation of Racine's Andromaque (1667), he wrote one of the best pseudo-classical tragedies in English, second only to Addison's Cato (1713). Henry Fielding parodied it in The Covent Garden Tragedy (1732), proving that it still held the stage in his day. Philips, who was nicknamed Namby-Pamby by Swift for his poor verses, wrote two other undistinguished tragedies, The Briton (1722) and Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester (1723).

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PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Philips, Ambrose." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. 29 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Philips, Ambrose." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. (May 29, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-PhilipsAmbrose.html

PHYLLIS HARTNOLL and PETER FOUND. "Philips, Ambrose." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Retrieved May 29, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-PhilipsAmbrose.html

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Philips, Ambrose

Philips, Ambrose (1674–1749), poet, is remembered chiefly for his quarrel with Pope over the relative merits of their pastorals. Pope drew, in the Guardian (No. 40, 1713), ‘a comparison of Philips's performance with his own, in which, with an unexampled and unequalled artifice of irony…he gives the preference to Philips’ ( Johnson, Lives of the English Poets). Philips's ‘Epistle to the Earl of Dorset’ (1709) memorably evokes the frozen landscape of Denmark. His infantile trochaics addressed to children earned him the nickname of ‘Namby Pamby’.

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MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Philips, Ambrose." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. 29 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Philips, Ambrose." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (May 29, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-PhilipsAmbrose.html

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Philips, Ambrose." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Retrieved May 29, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-PhilipsAmbrose.html

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