The Distrest Poet

The Distrest Poet is a painting by William Hogarth from around 1733–1736, issued as an engraving in 1737, depicting an impoverished poet working at his desk in a shabby garret while his family struggles with debt and hunger around him. The scene satirizes the pretensions and poverty of hack writers who overestimate their own literary talent, a stock target of 18th-century satire shared with contemporaries such as Alexander Pope.

See also

• William Hogarth