Rural Life in Eighteenth-Century English Poetry

TRAMA

This book examines the role of rural poetry, and self-taught poets, in eighteenth-century literary culture.

NOTE EDITORE

Recent research into a self-taught tradition of English rural poetry has begun to offer a radically new dimension to our view of the role of poetry in the literary culture of the eighteenth century. In this important new study John Goodridge offers a detailed reading of key rural poems of the period, examines the ways in which eighteenth-century poets adapted Virgilian Georgic models, and reveals an illuminating link between rural poetry and agricultural and folkloric developments. Goodridge compares poetic accounts of rural labour by James Thomson, Stephen Duck, and Mary Collier, and makes a close analysis of one of the largely forgotten didactic epics of the eighteenth century, John Dyer's The Fleece. Through an exploration of the purpose of rural poetry and how it relates to the real world, Goodridge breaks through the often brittle surface of eighteenth-century poetry, to show how it reflects the ideologies and realities of contemporary life.

SOMMARIO

Introduction; Part I. 'Hard Labour We Most Chearfully Pursue': Three Poets On Rural Work: 1. Thomson, Duck, Collier and rural realism; 2. Initiations and peak-times; 3. Three types of labour; 4. Compensations; 5. Homecomings; Part II. 'A Pastoral Convention and a Ruminative Mind': Agricultural Prescription In The Fleece: 6. Sheep and poetry; 7. 'Soil and clime'; 8. Environment and heredity; 9. The care of sheep; 10. The shepherd's harvest; Bibliography; Index.

PREFAZIONE

John Goodridge explores the role of rural poetry in eighteenth-century literary culture. He examines the purpose of rural poetry, and how it relates to the real world, analyses accounts of rural labour by self-taught poets, and reveals unexpected links between rural poetry and agricultural and folkloric developments of the time.

ALTRE INFORMAZIONI

• Condizione: Nuovo
• ISBN: 9780521433815
• Collana: Cambridge Studies in Eighteenth-Century English Literature and Thought
• Dimensioni: 236 x 24 x 158 mm Ø 545 gr
• Formato: Copertina rigida
• Pagine Arabe: 244