The Lover’s Progress

‘David Solway opts for a bawdier approach to the lyric in The Lover’s Progress. He models his lyric sequence on William Hogarth’s famous series of paintings, The Rake’s Progress (1733-35), and transports the rakish protagonist at the centre of Hogarth’s narrative into the twenty-first century. Solway makes the rake a cruiser of bars, women, and philosophies, as well as a dabbler in poetry. Perpetually in motion, the lover travels from Canada to Greece and revisits many of Solway’s favourite haunts.