John Gay

The English playwright and poet John Gay (1685-1732) is best known for "The Beggar's Opera," a skillful blend of literary, political, social, and musical satire.

John Gay was born on June 30, 1685, in Barnstaple, Devonshire. Orphaned at age 10, he was sent to the local grammar school until, aged about 17, he was apprenticed to a silk dealer in London. Possibly because of illness, he was released from this apprenticeship in 1706 and returned to Barnstaple. In 1708 he became Aaron Hill's secretary, helping especially with Hill's question-and-answer periodical paper, the British Apollo. That year Gay published his first poem, Wine; his first published prose, The Present State of Wit, a critical account of all the current journals, appeared in 1711.

Gay was domestic steward in the household of the Duchess of Monmouth from 1712 to 1714. Something between a secretary and a wit in residence, Gay gained financial security and freedom to write without loss of independence. As a result, 1713 was a most productive year for him, with the publication of six poems, at least two essays, and a play. The play, The Wife of Bath, was a failure; one poem, The Fan, was popular enough to establish a poetic fad.

The Shepherd's Week (1714) is a set of six pastorals in which English rural life is realistically portrayed. Gay's literary burlesque The What D'ye Call It (1715) was moderately successful. His wonderful three-book poem Trivia: or, theArt of Walking the Streets of London, published by subscription in 1716 to much acclaim and to the financial relief of the unemployed Gay, was deservedly praised for its originality, humor, and vivid accuracy.

Another play, Three Hours after Marriage, was produced in 1716 without great success. The next few years were marked by the successful publication of his collection Poems (1720), the libretto for G. F. Handel's Acis and Galatea (1722), and a tragedy, The Captives (1724). Gay's Fables (1727) was long popular with both adults and children.

The Beggar's Opera opened on Jan. 29, 1728, and ran for 62 nights—an unprecedented number—in its first season. This ballad opera, with music by John Pepusch, is a satirical picture of life among London's pickpockets, prostitutes, and highwaymen. Though the sequel, Polly (1729), also with music by Pepusch, was banned from performance, its publication brought Gay £ 1,000. Plagued by ill health, he died on Dec. 4, 1732.

Further Reading

Henry Lee, ed., Gay's Chair (1820), contains some spurious early poems but a genuine memoir by Gay's nephew, Joseph Buller. William E. Schultz, Gay's Beggar's Opera: Its Content, History, and Influence (1923), is the definitive study of that work. The fullest biography is William H. Irving, John Gay, Favorite of the Wits (1962). Patricia M. Spack John Gay (1965), is a convenient and reliable critical study, and Sven Armens, John Gay, Social Critic (1966), has the emphasis its title suggests.

Additional Sources

Melville, Lewis, Life and letters of John Gay (1685-1732), author of "The beggar's opera,", Norwood, Pa.: Norwood Editions, 1975.

Melville, Lewis, Life and letters of John Gay (1685-1732), author of "The beggar's opera", Philadelphia: R. West, 1977.

Nokes, David, John Gay, a profession of friendship, Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. □

Gay, John (1685–1732), published Rural Sports (1713), on the model of his friend Pope's Windsor Forest, and The Fan, which is in the mockheroic style of The Rape of the Lock. The Shepherd's Week (1714) was the first poem to show his real ability. His first play, The What D'ye Call it, a satirical farce, was produced in 1715, and Trivia appeared in 1716. With Pope and Arbuthnot he wrote a comedy, Three Hours after Marriage, acted in 1717. He became an inmate of the household of the duke of Queensberry, who was to be his literary executor. The first series of his popular Fables appeared in 1727, but real success came with The Beggar's Opera (1728) and its sequel Polly (1729). These two plays contain many of Gay's best-known ballads, but ‘Sweet William's Farewell to Black-Eyed Susan’ was published in Poems (1720) and ‘Twas when the seas were roaring’ is from his first play. He also wrote, c.1718, the librettos of Handel's Acis and Galatea (pub. 1732) and Achilles, an opera produced at Covent Garden in 1733. His poem in ottava rima ‘Mr Pope's Welcome from Greece’ (1776) was written to celebrate his friend's finishing his translation of The Iliad; it gives a vivid picture of the members of the Scriblerus Club. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, accompanied by his own epitaph:Life is a jest, and all things show it;
I thought so once, and now I know it.

Gay, John (1685–1732) English poet and dramatist. His verse includes The Shepherd's Week (1714) and Trivia (1716). His best-known work is the ballad-opera The Beggar's Opera (1728), a political satire and burlesque of Italian opera.