James Thomson’s Defence of Poetry: Intertextual Allusion in The Seasons

This study presents a contextual and intertextual reading of James Thomson’s (1700–1748) poem The Seasons , taking into consideration some of the presuppositions and habitus of the text’s cultural community and the function of the poem’s many intertextual allusions. An intertextual reading reveals The Seasons , though heterogeneous on its surface, as coherent in its cultural functionality. An analysis of the poem’s intertext uncovers textual strategies that attempt to re-legitimise poetic discourse as a culturally relevant force especially in relation to the newly privileged discourse of natural philosophy.