English term (edited): cooper�s hill joke

"This prepared the way for the fame of Cooper’s Hill, the first edition of which bears date 1642. Aubrey describes the delight which Denham took in the neighbourhood of the house at Egham, which had come to him by the death of the elder Sir John, its builder, in 1639. 20 This neighbourhood, as seen from Cooper’s hill, was the subject of a poem which, combining description with moral reflection in an unfamiliar manner, was, as an example of that combination, the first of a long series. 16
The habit of mind which produced these united elements of description and sentiment was natural to Denham, and was expressed by him without difficulty. After the preliminary argument, addressed to the hill on which he stands, that it is the poet who makes Parnassus, not Parnassus which makes the poet, he refers to the distant view of London and old St. Paul’s. He prophesies the eternal security of the cathedral, restored by the bounty of Charles I, and celebrated by the lines in which Waller hailed its restoration, and contrasts the tumult of the city with the innocent happiness of private life. The nearer towers of Windsor move him to the praise of the royal line, culminating in Charles I. A contrast is provoked by the memory of a chapel, apparently belonging to Chertsey abbey, which stood on a neighbouring hill: this calls forth reflections on Henry VIII, and on the religious controversies of his own day. The Thames next receives his praise in lines containing the passage which begins “O could I flow like thee”—a passage, however, which is not to be found in the first edition of the poem. The fertile valley, with its wooded banks, suggests old stories of fauns, nymphs and satyrs, and a long description of a stag-hunt, in which the quarry falls at length a victim to the king’s shaft. Here, on Runnymede, says Denham, continuing the hunt in metaphor, Liberty, hunted by Power, once stood at bay, and Power laid down arbitrary tyranny. The poem concludes with a comment, appropriate to the times, upon the encroachments of subjects on kingly generosity, and with a warning against provoking the fury of a river, which may be guarded against by embankments, but cannot be confined in time of flood within a narrower channel. 17
The feature of the style of Cooper’s Hill is a forcible conciseness, aiming at constant antithesis and occasional epigram. The reflections on the spoliation of the monasteries consist of a string of shrewd observations."

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English term (edited): cooper�s hill joke

aggiungi una nota sulla traduzione, spiegando la ricchezza in riferimenti e rimandi ceh rendono questo testo un testimone dei molteplici aspetti della realtà dell'India di inizio secolo, dei mondi paralleli degli indigeni e dei coloni ecc.