The Task (poem)

Beginning with a mock-Miltonic passage on the origins of the sofa, it develops into a discursive meditation on the blessings of nature, the retired life and religious faith, with attacks on slavery, blood sports, fashionable frivolity, lukewarm clergy and French despotism among other things.

As the poet himself writes, ...my raptures are not conjur'd up To serve occasions of poetic pomp, But genuine...[1] Cowper prefaced The Task with an account of its genesis: A lady, fond of blank verse, demanded a poem of that kind from the Author, and gave him the SOFA for a subject.

He obeyed; and, having much leisure, connected another subject with it; and, pursuing the train of thought to which his situation and turn of mind led him, brought forth at length, instead of the trifle which he at first intended, a serious affair – a Volume.

It was decided to add three shorter poems, An Epistle to Joseph Hill, Tirocinium and The Diverting History of John Gilpin, but, because of delays on Johnson’s part, the book did not appear until 1785.

Certainly the young Coleridge wrote of Cowper's "divine Chit chat", and in later years praised The Task's "chastity of diction" and "harmony of blank verse".