Romantic Poetry and Literary Coteries: The Dialect of the Tribe (Nineteenth-Century Major Lives and Letters)

Combining historical poetics and book history, Romantic Poetry and Literary Coteries shows Romanticism as characterized by tropes and forms that were jointly produced by literary circles. To show these connections, Fulford pulls from a wealth of print material including political squibs, magazine essays, illustrated tour poems, and journals. "Fulford's astonishing command of the diverse methods, interests, and materials dispersed throughout the field of Romantic studies today and of the critical practices of the past thirty years gives this study title to its own title: it is itself a grammar, lexicon, and demonstration of the dialect of our tribe - the scholars, critics, and historians of things and themes Romantic."--Marjorie Levinson, F.L. Huetwell Professor of English Language and Literature, University of Michigan, USA "In Romantic Poetry and Literary Coteries Tim Fulford weaves a series of rich literary networks, or coteries. Arguing that coteries create collective poetic projects, he revisits literary 'allusion', demonstrating that it knits together such projects as one of the means by which authors interact. Such an approach reveals the development of poetic language and subject matter as a communal project, sometimes across generations-Wordsworth's plain diction in conversation with Cowper, for instance. By focusing on how these coteries were constituted, this book makes a series of important contributions to our understanding of Romantic authorship."--Alan Vardy, Professor of English, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA "Ranging from the Lake Poets to the Cockneys and beyond, Tim Fulford makes a major contribution to our understanding of romantic sociality and the role of circles in literary production. His encyclopedic erudition is brought to bear not only upon the usual suspects such as Wordsworth or Hunt, but also Blooomfield and Robinson, country poets and city prophets. Particularly striking is his analysis of coterie language, as he shows how the poetry of the various groups he examines creates through allusion a kind of collective dialect." - Jeffrey N. Cox, Professor of English, University of Colorado Boulder, USA "How does Romantic poetry read if seen as the product of social authorship--the group language of coteries of writers, editors, publishers and critics--rather than as a series of verbal icons--original lyrics and romances composed by individual geniuses? Romantic Poetry and Literary Coteries explores Romanticism as a discourse characterized by tropes and forms that were jointly produced by literary circles - writing communities - in self-conscious opposition to prevailing social and political values and in deliberate differentiation from the normal practices of contemporary print culture. Among the tropes examined are allusion and borrowing; among the forms discussed are blank-verse effusions, political squibs, magazine essays, millenarian prophecies, long-form notebook verse, illustrated tour poems and prose journals. Coteries considered include the Southey/Coleridge circle, including Bowles, Cottle, Cowper, Lamb, Lloyd, Robinson and Wordsworth; the Bloomfield circle, including Capel Lofft and Thomas Hood; the Clare circle, including Byron, Cowper, William Knight and John Taylor; the Cockneys, including Richard Brothers, William Bryan, De Quincey, Hood, Leigh Hunt, Robert Mudie, Patmore"-- Provided by publisher Front Matter....Pages i-x Introduction....Pages 1-19 Front Matter....Pages 21-21 The Politicization of Allusion in Early Romanticism: Mary Robinson and the Bristol Poets....Pages 23-61 Brothers in Lore: Fraternity and Priority in Thalaba, “Christabel,” and “Kubla Khan”....Pages 63-78 Signifying Nothing: Coleridge’s Visions of 1816—Anti-allusion and the Poetic Fragment....Pages 79-97 Positioning The Missionary: Poetic Circles and the Development of Colonial Romance....Pages 99-127 Front Matter....Pages 129-129 The Production of a Poet: Robert Bloomfield, His Patrons, and His Publishers....Pages 131-163 Iamb Yet What Iamb: Allusion and Delusion in John Clare’s Asylum Poems....Pages 165-186 Front Matter....Pages 187-187 Romanticism Lite: Talking, Walking, and Name-Dropping in the Cockney Essay....Pages 189-211 Allusions of Grandeur: Prophetic Authority and the Romantic City....Pages 213-232 Back Matter....Pages 233-264