Popular Medievalism in Romantic-Era Britain (Nineteenth-Century Major Lives and Letters)

Popular Medievalism in Romantic-Era Britain examines ways in which British writers and readers used the idea of the Middle Ages to challenge contemporary political structures against the backdrop of the French Revolution. Through the consideration of canonical authors such as Blake, Scott, and Wordsworth and of lesser-studied works such as radical press writings and popular drama, this study explores the imaginative appeal of the social structures and literary forms of the Middle Ages, and how they raised awareness of Britain's tradition of freedom Front Matter....Pages i-xii Introduction: Popular Medievalism and the Romantic Ethos....Pages 1-15 Rites and Rights: The Topography of Ancient British Law....Pages 17-55 Taking Medievalism Home: The National Melody....Pages 57-79 Medievalism Onstage in the French Revolutionary Era....Pages 81-103 The Radical Bestiary....Pages 105-140 Buried Alive: Gothic Reading and Medievalist Subjectivity....Pages 141-165 Scottish Lawyers, Feudal Law....Pages 167-190 Epilogue: Medievalism Becomes Expensive....Pages 191-194 Back Matter....Pages 195-233