Class and the canon : constructing labouring-class poetry and poetics, 1780-1900 / edited by Kirstie Blair and Mina Gorji.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Blair, Kirstie.

Gorji, Mina, 1975-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English poetry--19th century--History and criticism.

English poetry.

English poetry--20th century--History and criticism.

Working class writings, English--History and criticism.

Working class writings, English.

Physical Description:

xi, 216 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

New York, N.Y. : Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

Summary:

This essay collection focuses on a continuous tradition of labouring-class poetics, from Burns in the eighteenth century to the mid-late century Victorian dialect poets who saw themselves, and were seen as, his direct heirs. It speaks to recent scholarly interest in and recovery of labouring-class writing from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. By focusing on how labouring-class poets constructed themselves and were peers and constructed by critics as part to a 'canon', how they situated their work in relation to peers and contemporaries, as welt as more established poets from their own and earlier periods, the essays here highlight the complexities of labouring-class poetic identities and practices across this period. The poets and critics discussed, coming from diverse backgrounds in terms of regional identity, level of education, and involvement in established literary culture, complicate our understanding of what labouring-class poets might do and might achieve. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Introduction / Kirstie Blair Blair, Kirstie 1

2 Was Burns a Labouring-Class Poet? / Nigel Leask Leask, Nigel 16

3 Constructing the Ulster Labouring-Class Poet: The Case of Samuel Thomson / Jennifer Orr Orr, Jennifer 34

4 Sociable or Solitary? John Clare, Robert Bloomfield, Community and Isolation / John Goodridge Goodridge, John 55

5 John Clare and the Triumph of Little Things / Mina Gorji Gorji, Mina 77

6 'No more than as an atom 'mid the vast profound': Conceptions of Time in the Poetry of William Cowper, William Wordsworth, and Ann Yearsley / Kerri Andrews Andrews, Kerri 95

7 The Pen and the Hammer: Thomas Carlyle, Ebenezer Elliott, and the 'active poet' / Marcus Waithe Waithe, Marcus 116

8 Samuel Ferguson's Maudlin Jumble / Matthew Campbell Campbell, Matthew 136

9 Courtly Lays or Democratic Songs? The Politics of Poetic Citation in Chartist Literary Criticism / Michael Sanders Sanders, Michael 156

10 Edwin Waugh: The Social and Literary Standing of a Working-Class Icon / Brian Hollingworth Hollingworth, Brian 174

11 William Barnes's Place and Dialects of Connection / Sue Edney Edney, Sue 191.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781137030320

1137030321

OCLC:

820530790