John Dennis

For Appius and Virginia (1709), he invented a new kind of thunder. The play was not a success and the management of the Drury Lane Theatre withdrew it. But later at a performance of Macbeth there Dennis found the thunder produced by his method and said,

According to Brewer's entry (under the headword thunder), this is the origin of the phrase, "to steal one's thunder".

Dennis is best remembered as the leading critic of his generation, and as a pioneer of the concept of the sublime as an aesthetic quality. After taking the Grand Tour of the Alps he published his comments in a journal letter published as Miscellanies in 1693, giving an account of crossing the Alps where, contrary to his prior feelings for the beauty of nature as a "delight that is consistent with reason", the experience of the journey was at once a "pleasure to the eye as music is to the ear", but "mingled with Horrours, and sometimes almost with despair." The significance of his account is that the concept of the sublime, at the time a rhetoric term primarily relevant to literary criticism, was used to describe a positive appreciation for horror and terror in aesthetic experience, in contrast to Ashley Cooper, The Third Earl of Shaftesbury,’s more timid response to the sublime. Read Less

In the years following this he appears to have become increasingly marginalised, both from new developments in cultural life, and from a new generation on the literary scene. Read Less

His analysis of Addison’s highly successful patriotic tragedy in the Remarks upon Cato (1713) returned to this subject, and while Dennis’ motivation may have been partly personally motivated, his criticism remains acute and sensible, and is quoted at considerable length by Johnson in his Life of Addison.

According to Thomas Macaulay (Life and Writings of Addison, p. 215) Pope seized the opportunity to respond on Addison’s behalf “venting his malice under the show of friendship”, with The Narrative of Dr. Robert Norris, concerning the strange and deplorable frenzy of John Dennis (1713). The pamphlet was full of personal abuse, exposing Dennis's foibles, but offered no defence of Cato, and Addison repudiated any connivance in this attack, and indirectly notified Dennis that when he did answer his objections, it would be without personalities.

However, Dennis's day as a leading figure on the London literary scene was over. He gained the nickname of “Furius”, while his enthusiasm for the terrible sublime was mocked. The apocryphal tale regarding his petitioning the Duke of Marlborough to have a special clause inserted in the Treaty of Utrecht to secure him from French vengeance, if true, suggests growing paranoia. (Marlborough joked that although he had been a still greater enemy of the French nation, he had no fear for his own security!) Read Less