Subjects
Chartist Literary Landmarks
Editor: Mike Sanders
978 1 84893 073 5: 234x156mm: £275.00/$495.00
The Chartist movement remains one of the most studied social and political movements in modern British history. But despite this interest the literary and cultural dimensions of Chartism have only recently begun to attract scholarly attention. As a result of recent work, however, Chartist poetry and drama are becoming increasingly established in the mainstream of literary studies, but this burgeoning interest is hampered by the unavailability of key texts and there is currently no scholarly edition of Chartist poetry. This collection will break new ground by making available the most significant literary productions of the Chartist movement, each volume addressing a different problem within the Chartist literary tradition.
Volume 1 focuses on the decision of Thomas Cooper to work in the epic genre, thereby simultaneously challenging and affirming the claims of ‘elite’ culture. Volume 2 follows Chartist leader, Ernest Jones, in and through his poetry, and the evolution of late Romantic tropes in the early Victorian period. Finally, Volume 3 explores the way in which Chartist authors addressed the problems posed by working in a dramatic genre (tragedy) which might be thought of as hostile to Chartist literary and political aspirations.
The collection will make an important contribution to the scholarly processes of recovery and canon revision and in addition, it will facilitate further scholarly work on the Chartist movement in particular, as well as contributing to broader research on the cultural history of the working classes in the nineteenth century. The series will be of interest to scholars of literature and theatre, historians, social scientists and other scholars of the period.
Contents
Volume 1
Thomas Cooper, The Purgatory of Suicides
Volume 2
Ernest Jones, Collected Poems
Volume 3
Chartist Drama