-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Dennis Claxton Sent: Friday, November 25, 2011 10:07 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org; lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Questions from before the Global Minotaur...
At 09:22 AM 11/24/2011, Doug Henwood wrote:
>THe patron-client relationship is very personal. The artist-market
>one, less so.
Depends though. The history of people buying copies is very long. That's a market outside the patron-client relationship. -------
I can't remember off hand the other items in the list, but in Vanity of Human Wishes Johnson lists the miseries of the writer, ending with (I think -- I'll look this up later) "the patron and the jail." Johnson also claimed that only a blockhead would write for any other purpose but getting paid. Probably not serious there, but it is true that for writers from the late 17th-c on patrons were few and far between & had a really miserable reputation. Pope got financial independence through his translation of Homer, a good deal of that from subscribers in advance, which was a sort of patronage. Swift never got much help from anyone, including politicians he had supported. One of Pope's satires (not a recent memory here) focused on an unnamed "patron," ending with only Dryden escaped the horrors of his patronage. Haydn's relationship with the Esterhazys was I believe something of a misery, and Mozart had trouble with several patrons who didn't offer much patronage. A reasonably humane lady took Cowper under her wing, & took care of him through his bouts of depression & mania. One of the great poems that few know about is one by Charles Churchill called "The Dedication." Patrons in general were notoriously demanding, and depending on them was more often than not a humiliation. Joanna perhaps could give more detail on the price James put on any patronage for Donne. Some of Jonson's greatest poems have a streak of ass-licking in them.
Carrol