Rural Life in Eighteenth-Century English Poetry

ISBN-13: 9780521433815 / Angielski / Twarda / 1996 / 244 str.

John Goodridge

Opis

Recent research into a self-taught tradition of English rural poetry has radically changed our view of the role of poetry in the literary culture of the eighteenth century. Here John Goodridge compares poetic accounts of rural labor by James Thomson, Stephen Duck and Mary Collier, and makes a close analysis of John Dyer's The Fleece. Goodridge goes on to explore the purpose of rural poetry and how it relates to the real world, and reveals an illuminating link between rural poetry and agricultural and folkloric developments of the time.

Recenzje

'Although this is a book which is specialised, it is of much interest and importance to those studying rural poetry, rural labour history or agricultural history.' John Clare Society Journal

Spis treści

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.