Five long winters : the trials of British Romanticism / John Bugg.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bugg, John W., 1972-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Authors, English--18th century--Political and social views.

Authors, English.

English literature--18th century--History and criticism.

English literature.

Politics and literature--England--History--18th century.

Politics and literature.

Romanticism--England.

Romanticism.

Great Britain--Politics and government--1789-1820.

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 246 pages) : illustrations (black and white)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This book argues that the British government's repression of the 1790's rivals the French Revolution as the most important historical event for our understanding the development of Romantic literature. Romanticism has long been associated with both rebellion and escapism, and much Romantic historicism traces an arc from the outburst of democratic energy in British culture triggered by the French Revolution to a dwindling of enthusiasm later in the 1790's, when things in France turned violent. Writers such as Wordsworth and Coleridge can then be seen as "apostates" who turned from radical politics to a poetics of transcendence. Bugg argues instead for a poetics of silence, and his book is set against the backdrop of the so-called Gagging Acts and other legislation of William Pitt, which in literature manifests itself stylistically as silence, stuttering, fragmentation, and encoding. Mining archives of unpublished documents, including manuscripts, diaries, and letters, where authors were more candid, as well as rereading the work of both major and minor figures, a number of whom were subject to prison sentences, Five Long Winters offers a new way of approaching the literature of the Romantic era.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Figures

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Repressive 1790's

Chapter one. Plots Discovered

Chapter two. Close Confinement

Chapter three. Hell Broth

Chapter four. “By force, or openly, what could be done?”

Chapter five. “I cannot tell”

Afterword

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed December 6, 2013).

ISBN:

9780804787307

0804787301

OCLC:

862614113