John Thelwall: Selected Poetry and Poetics (Nineteenth-Century Major Lives and Letters)

Drawing on newly-discovered manuscripts, this collection is the first modern edition of poetry by John Thelwall, the famed radical Romantic and champion of the working class. Eight key essays and 125 fully-annotated poems introduce his work in correspondence with historical traditions and current critical paradigms. John Thelwall: Selected Poetry and Poetics is the first modern edition of remarkably wide-ranging and original poetry and criticism of a Romantic-era polymath better known for his political activism than his literary art. John Thelwall stood at the forefront of the 'lost generation' of the 1790s and it wasn't until the late twentieth century that he regained his rightful place in history, as a generation of scholars argued for his significance as a 'maker of the English working class.' A cogent preface introduces his key theories, and eight essays and 125 fully-annotated poems are produced in context with correspondence with major contemporaries from Blake to Byron, historical traditions, and recent critical paradigms of sociable, performative, and gendered romanticism. Drawing on newly-discovered manuscripts, this book offers a representative selection that complements recent editions of Thelwall's political writing, plays and novels, and contributes to an ongoing project of archival rediscovery and critical revival Adjectives are the third most important class of words (after verbs and nouns), yet this is the first book-length study in English of this central grammatical category. In it English adjectives are described within a framework which unifies semantics and syntax; this has important implications for the modelling of lexis in general. It has long been a principle of systemic functional linguistics - the theory in which the description is set - that lexis should be treated, in Halliday's words, as 'most delicate grammar'. Until now, this challenging concept has never been explored and tested for more than a few small areas of lexis. The research reported here is the first large-scale test of this hypothesis. After a thorough survey of the relevant literature, Gordon Tucker provides a linguistic description of the meanings and forms of the adjectives themselves, the structures that occur around them, and the functions that such units perform as elements of other units (such as the clause and the nominal group). The Lexicogrammar of Adjectives constitutes a major descriptive addition to our knowledge of the value of'lexis as most delicate grammar'. It is a major contribution to the theoretical modelling of language in general and of words in particular. Its conclusions are important both for systemic functional linguistics and for linguistic theory in general. Gordon H. Tucker is lecturer in Language and Communication at Cardiff University "John Thelwall: Selected Poetry and Poetics is the first modern edition of poetry by a man better known as a romantic radical and eloquent champion of the working class. Drawing on newly-discovered manuscripts, it reveals the originality and sophistication of his poetic voice by gathering the remarkable range of his poetry, both published and performed, into 8 chapters organized by genre. Eight key essays and 125 fully-annotated poems are introduced in correspondence with major contemporaries (from Blake to Byron), historical traditions, and recent critical paradigms of sociable, performative and gendered romanticism. A cogent preface introduces his key theories, shows how they unite his political philosophy and poetic language, and demonstrates how that language operates. It also offers the first complete (albeit brief) biography of Thelwall, focusing on his poetic genesis and development"-- Provided by publisher It has long been a tenet of systemic functional linguistics that lexis should be treated as ""most delicate grammar"", that is, that the ""senses"" of lexical items should be modelled in system networks that are essentially similar in kind to those used in model meanings realized in grammar. After verbs and nouns, adjectives are the most important lexical word class. This is a descriptive and theoretical study of this central grammatical category, providing a demonstration of the validity of Halliday's hypothesis, and aiming to contribute to the linguistic theory of both systemic functional an Front Matter....Pages i-xv Introduction: “Poets and Poesy I Sing”....Pages 1-19 Poems Pastoral and Peripatetic....Pages 21-50 Comic Ballads, Satires, and Seditious Allegories....Pages 51-86 Sonnets....Pages 87-102 Odes I: Public and Pindaric....Pages 103-134 Odes II: Conversations and Effusions....Pages 135-174 Songs of Love....Pages 175-210 Epic: The Hope of Albion....Pages 211-247 Autobiographies....Pages 249-274 Back Matter....Pages 275-324