Landscape, Liberty and Authority: Poetry, Criticism and Politics from Thomson to Wordsworth (Cambridge Studies in Eighteenth-Century English Literature and Thought, Series Number 30)

Tim Fulford examines landscape description in the writings of Thomson, Cowper, Johnson, Gilpin, Repton, Wordsworth, Coleridge and others. He shows how landscape description formed part of a larger debate over the nature of liberty and authority in a Britain developing its sense of nationhood, and reveals the tensions that arose as writers sought to define their relationship to the public sphere. Fulford's innovative study offers a new view of literary and political influence linking the early eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Counter Eighteenth-century landscape description formed part of a larger debate over the nature of liberty and authority which was vital to a Britain newly defining its nationhood in a period of growing imperial power and rapid economic change. Tim Fulford examines landscape description in the writings of Thomson, Cowper, Johnson, Gilpin, Repton, Wordsworth, Coleridge and others, revealing tensions that arose as writers struggled for authority over the public sphere and sought to redefine the nature of that authority. In his investigation of poetry and political and aesthetic writing, Dr Fulford throws new light on the legacy of Commonwealth and Country-party ideas of liberty. Also discussed are the significance of the Miltonic sublime, the politics of the picturesque and the post-colonial encounter of the Scottish tour. Dr Fulford goes on to show how the early radicalism and later conservatism of Wordsworth and Coleridge were shaped, in part, by eighteenth-century literary political and literary authorities. His innovative study offers an understanding of literary and political influence that cuts across conventional periodisation, finding new links between the early eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Frontmatter Acknowledgements (page x) List of abbreviations (page xi) Introduction (page 1) 1 Thomson and Cowper: the 'stubborn Country tam'd'? (page 18) 2 Johnson: the usurpations of virility (page 73) 3 Unreliable authorities? Squires, tourists and the picturesque (page 116) 4 Wordsworth: the politics of landscape (page 157) 5 Coleridge: fields of liberty (page 214) Index (page 245) Dr Fulford examines landscape description in the writings of Thomson, Cowper, Johnson, Wordsworth, Coleridge and others, showing how such descriptions formed part of a larger debate about liberty and authority, and offering connections between eighteenth and nineteenth-century literature and politics.

Landscape descriptions examined in a wider context of eighteenth-century debates over liberty and authority.

Born in 1700 in Scotland, Thomson came to London in 1725.