Poetry and Popular Protest: Peterloo, Cato Street and the Queen Caroline Controversy (Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Cultures of Print)

This book provides provocative information on poetry written in response to the most revolutionary set of events seen in Britain since the 1640s: 'Peterloo', a peaceful protest that became a massacre; 'Cato Street', a government scripted rebellion; and the 'Queen Caroline Controversy', when the estranged wife of George IV tried to claim her crown. This book investigates the relationship between poetry and protest in the years immediately following the end of the Napoleonic wars--from 1815-1822. This book furthers knowledge of Romantic period culture by providing new and provocative information on canonical poets such as Byron, Lamb, and Shelley alongside anonymous poets, pamphleteers, balladeers and publishing pirates, by focusing on their relationship with contemporary political events. In a period when only 5% of the population could vote, poetry and politics became inseparable as disparate groups of poets struggled to control the representation of the most dramatic revolutionary events of the day. Consequently the gulf that separated 'high' literature from the literature of the streets shrank to allow a glimpse of a new kind of writing that denied the possibility of literary stratification, and, for this very reason, threatened the stratified society out of which it had been produced "A much-needed, invigorating and provocative insight into an explosive moment in literary and political history: Gardner's close readings of both lesser-known and canonical Romantic poetry shed new light on the plebeian counter-public sphere in one of its most high-profile confrontations with the unreformed Regency state. A very welcome addition to studies of Romantic print culture."--Professor Ian Haywood, Roehampton University, UK 'This thought-provoking and fascinating study of a short moment in British political and literary history brings together writing of every kind from elite poetry to street doggerel. Through analysing all forms of print culture it brilliantly reveals how much was at stake in the years from 1819 to 1821 and how decisive -- and long-lasting - was the victory of the small ruling elite over the forces of reform.' - Professor Janet Todd, University of Aberdeen and Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, UK Front Matter....Pages i-xix Introduction: ‘The Radical Ladder’....Pages 1-10 Front Matter....Pages 11-11 Peterloo....Pages 13-20 Myth-making: Samuel Bamford and Peterloo....Pages 21-32 William Hone’s Peterloo....Pages 33-71 Shelley: Doggerel and Dialectics....Pages 72-101 Front Matter....Pages 103-103 The Cato Street Tragedy....Pages 105-119 Charles Lamb and the Spy System....Pages 120-129 Byron, Cato Street and Marino Faliero....Pages 130-155 Front Matter....Pages 157-157 Introducing the Players....Pages 159-182 Byron and the Loyalists....Pages 183-194 Shelley and the Radicals....Pages 195-217 Conclusion....Pages 218-225 Back Matter....Pages 226-272 This text provides information on poetry written in response to the most revolutionary set of events seen in Britain since the 1640s: Peterloo, a peaceful protest that became a massacre, Cato Street, a government scripted rebellion, and the Queen Caroline Controversy, when the estranged wife of George IV tried to claim her crown