In The Task, published in 1785, William Cowper evokes the mock-heroic, also known as the mock-epic, through an imitation of the language of the classic epic poets, and syntax or sentence structure, in an attempt (or even a quest) to discover a...

In his writing on the physiology of reading in Restoration England, Adrian Johns recalls a story concerning the natural philosopher Robert Boyle. Finding himself with a ‘tertian ague’ whilst at school, Boyle was encouraged to divert his melancholy...