Poetry and the Creation of a Whig Literary Culture 1681-1714

by Williams, Abigail

• ISBN13: 9780199558629
• ISBN10: 0199558620
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-05-05
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Poetry and the Creation of Whig Literary Culture offers a new perspective on early eighteenth century poetry and literary culture, arguing that long-neglected Whig poets such as Joseph Addison, John Dennis, Thomas Tickell, and Richard Blackmore were more popular and successful in their owntime than they have been since. These and other Whig writers produced elevated poetry celebrating the political and military achievements of William III's Britain, and were committed to an ambitious project to create a distinctively Whiggish English literary culture after the Revolution of 1688. Farfrom being the penniless hacks and dunces satirized by John Dryden and the Scriblerians, they were supported by the patronage of the wealthy Whig aristocracy, and their works promoted as a new English literature to rival that of classical Greece and Rome. 'Poetry and the Creation of Whig LiteraryCulture' maps for the first time the evolution of an alternative early eighteenth-century poetic tradition which is central to our understanding of the literary history of the period.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Rereading Whig literary culture

The Tory Critique of Whig Literature

Moderation, Fanaticism and 'the people', 1681-1688

Legitimacy and the Warrior King, 1688-1702

Poetic Warfare, 1702-1714

The Sublime and the Liberty of Writing

Patronage and the Public Writer in Whig Literary Culture

Conclusion: Whig Afterlives

Biographical Appendix

Bibliography

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