page_title: The Distrest Poet
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: The Distrest Poet / Background
caption_attribution_description: The Enraged Musician
context_page_description: The Distrest Poet is an oil painting produced sometime around 1736 by the British artist William Hogarth. Reproduced as an etching and engraving, it was published in 1741 from a third state plate produced in 1740. The scene was probably inspired by Alexander Pope's satirical poem The Dunciad. It depicts a scene in a small, dingy attic room where a poet sits at his desk in the dormer and, scratching his head, stares at the papers on the desk before him, evidently looking for inspiration to complete the poem he is writing. Near him sits his wife darning clothes, surprised by the entrance of a milkmaid, who impatiently demands payment of debts.
context_section_description: The engraving of The Distrest Poet in its third state was issued on 15 December 1741 as a companion piece to The Enraged Musician, a comic scene of a violinist driven to distraction by the noise from the street outside his practice room. The initial plate for The Distrest Poet was produced soon after Hogarth had completed the oil painting, but the third state plate was not completed until late in 1740 at which time Hogarth advertised his intention to issue a three-image set: The Provok'd Musician, The Distrest Poet, and a third image on the subject of "Painting". The Provok'd Musician (renamed The Enraged Musician) was produced in 1741 but the third image was never completed.
caption: The Enraged Musician.
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