John Hookham Frere - Works

Works

Frere's literary reputation now rests entirely upon his spirited verse translations of Aristophanes, which remain in many ways unrivalled. The principles according to which he conducted his task were elucidated in an article on Mitchell's Aristophanes, which he contributed to The Quarterly Review, vol. xxiii. The translations of The Acharnians, The Knights, The Birds, and The Frogs were privately printed, and were first brought into general notice by George Cornewall Lewis in the Classical Museum for 1847. They were followed some time after by Theognis Restilutus, or the personal history of the poet Theognis of Megara, deduced from an analysis of his existing fragments. In 1817 he published a mock-heroic Arthurian poem entitled Prospectus and Specimen of an intended National Work, by William and Robert Whistlecraft, of Stowmarket in Suffolk, Harness and Collar Makers, intended to comprise the most interesting particulars relating to King Arthur and his Round Table. William Tennant in Anster Fair had used the ottava rima as a vehicle for semi-burlesque poetry five years earlier, but Frere's experiment is interesting because Byron borrowed from it the measure that he brought to perfection in Don Juan.

Frere's complete works were published in 1871, with a memoir by his nephews, WE and Sir Henry Bartle Frere, and reached a second edition in 1874.