Thomas Hood and nineteenth-century poetry : work, play and politics / Sara Lodge.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lodge, Sara (Sara J.)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hood, Thomas, 1799-1845.

Hood, Thomas.

Hood, Thomas, 1799-1845--Criticism and interpretation.

Criticism and interpretation.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xiii, 216 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Manchester ; New York : Manchester University Press ; distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave, 2007.

Summary:

This is the first modern critical study of Thomas Hood, a hugely popular and influential nineteenth-century poet, editor, cartoonist and voice of social protest. A close friend of Charles Lamb and John Hamilton Reynolds, and acclaimed by Dickens, the Brownings, and the Rossettis, Hood bridges the years between 1820 and 1845. His quirky, diverse output offers fascinating insights for Romanticists and Victorianists alike.

Thomas Hood and nineteenth-century poetry is an exemplary interdisciplinary study, mirroring the manifold interests of its subject. Lodge starts by examining the early nineteenth-century print culture into which Hood was born and analyses the dynamic effect of this and his dissenting heritage on his approach to language and play. She goes on to look at the London Magazine and the performative strategies Hood shares with Lamb, Reynolds and other periodical colleagues, and investigates dramatic monologue and nineteenth-century 'minor' theatre as well as contemporary grotesque art and literature. An entertaining chapter is exclusively devoted to exploring the cultural politics of Hood's trademark puns. The final section discusses the battle over leisure in the early nineteenth century, presenting Hood's play as a critical intervention on the 'labour question' that continues to resonate in the modern academic environment, where the dominant model of productivity undervalues play and pleasure in literary study.

Contents:

1 Material backgrounds: print, dissent, and the social society 16

2 Hood and the minor: at the London Magazine and after 39

3 Performing the city: the audience as subject 73

4 A common centaur: Hood and the grotesque 99

5 Pun and pleasure: Hood's tied trope 141

6 Sine qua non-sense: work, play, and criticism 176.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [203]-209) and index.

ISBN:

9780719076268

0719076269

OCLC:

154789210