Poetaster, like rhymester or versifier, is a derogatory term applied to bad or inferior poets. Specifically, poetaster has implications of unwarranted pretensions to artistic value. The word was coined in Latin by Erasmus in 1521. It was first used in English by Ben Jonson in his 1600 play Cynthia's Revels; immediately afterwards Jonson chose it as the title of his 1601 play Poetaster. In that play the "poetaster" character is a satire on John Marston, one of Jonson's rivals in the Poetomachia or War of the Theatres.
Usage
While poetaster has always been a negative appraisal of a poet's skills, rhymester and versifier have held ambiguous meanings depending on the commentator's opinion of a writer's verse. Versifier is often used to refer to someone who produces work in verse with the implication that while technically able to make lines rhyme they have no real talent for poetry. Rhymeron the other hand is usually impolite despite attempts to salvage the reputation of rhymers such as the Rhymers' Club and Rhymer being a common last name. The faults of a poetaster frequently include errors or lapses in their work's meter, badly rhyming words which jar rather than flow, oversentimentality, too much use of the pathetic fallacy and unintentionally bathetic choice of subject matter. Although a mundane subject in the hands of some great poets can be raised to the level of art, such as On First Looking into Chapman's Homer by John Keats or by Thomas Gray, others merely produce bizarre poems on bizarre subjects, an example being James McIntyre, who wrote mainly of cheese. Other poets often regarded as poetasters are William Topaz McGonagall, Julia A. Moore, Edgar Guest, Dmitry Khvostov, and Alfred Austin. Austin, despite having been a British poet laureate, is nevertheless regarded as greatly inferior to his predecessor, Alfred Lord Tennyson; he was frequently mocked during his career and is little read today. The American poet Joyce Kilmer, known for his 1913 poem "Trees", is often criticized for his overly sentimental and traditional verse written at the dawn of Modernist poetry, although some of his poems are frequently anthologized and retain enduring popular appeal. "Trees" has been parodied innumerable times, including notably parody by Ogden Nash.
Modern use
Musician Joanna Newsom on the albumThe Milk-eyed Mender uses the term to refer to a struggling narrator wracked with ambition to create beautiful poetry in a verse from "Inflammatory Writ": RapperBig Daddy Kane uses an adjectival form as an insult in his song "Uncut, Pure": The bandMiracle Fortress has a song entitled "Poetaster".
Variants
In the sense that a poetaster is a pretended poet, John Marston coined the term parasitaster, for one who pretends to be a parasite or sycophant, in his play Parasitaster, or The Fawn. Later in the 17th century appeared the term criticaster for an inferior and pretentious critic.
