Richard Greene
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198119883
- eISBN:
- 9780191671234
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198119883.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry, 18th-century Literature
Mary Leapor, a Northamptonshire kitchen maid, produced a substantial body of exceptional poetry that was only published after her early death at the age of twenty-four. This is a timely ...
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Mary Leapor, a Northamptonshire kitchen maid, produced a substantial body of exceptional poetry that was only published after her early death at the age of twenty-four. This is a timely examination of the work of a poet who has remained almost forgotten for 200 years. Leapor is one of many gifted poets, mainly women and labourers, whose work stands outside the traditional canon of eighteenth-century verse. This book draws on extensive primary research to present substantial new information about Leapor's life. It discusses her protests against the injustices suffered by women and the poor, her attempts to gain an education, and the influence that illness and the expectation of an early death had upon her writing. Throughout, Leapor is seen in relation to both the mainstream poets of her time and to those whom literary history has consigned to obscurity. The book thus provides insight not only into the work of a single neglected woman poet, but offers a sometimes surprising perspective on the literary history of the ‘Ages of Pope and Johnson’.
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Mary Leapor, a Northamptonshire kitchen maid, produced a substantial body of exceptional poetry that was only published after her early death at the age of twenty-four. This is a timely examination of the work of a poet who has remained almost forgotten for 200 years. Leapor is one of many gifted poets, mainly women and labourers, whose work stands outside the traditional canon of eighteenth-century verse. This book draws on extensive primary research to present substantial new information about Leapor's life. It discusses her protests against the injustices suffered by women and the poor, her attempts to gain an education, and the influence that illness and the expectation of an early death had upon her writing. Throughout, Leapor is seen in relation to both the mainstream poets of her time and to those whom literary history has consigned to obscurity. The book thus provides insight not only into the work of a single neglected woman poet, but offers a sometimes surprising perspective on the literary history of the ‘Ages of Pope and Johnson’.
Nigel Leask
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199572618
- eISBN:
- 9780191722974
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199572618.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry, 18th-century Literature
This book is a reassessment of the writings of Robert Burns (1759–96), arguably the most original poet writing in Great Britain between Pope and Blake, and creator of the first modern ...
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This book is a reassessment of the writings of Robert Burns (1759–96), arguably the most original poet writing in Great Britain between Pope and Blake, and creator of the first modern vernacular style in British poetry. Although still celebrated as Scotland's national poet, Burns has long been marginalised in English literary studies worldwide, due to a mistaken view that his poetry is linguistically incomprehensible and of interest to Scottish readers only. This book challenges this view by interpreting Burns's poetry as an innovative and critical engagement with the experience of rural modernity, namely to the revolutionary transformation of Scottish agriculture and society in the decades between 1760 and 1800, thereby resituating it within the mainstream of the Scottish and European enlightenments. Detailed study of the literary, social, and historical contexts of Burns's poetry explodes the myth of the ‘Heaven-taught ploughman’, revealing his poetic artfulness and critical acumen as a social observer, as well as his significance as a Romantic precursor. The book discusses Burns's radical decision to write ‘Scots pastoral’ (rather than English georgic) poetry in the tradition of Allan Ramsay and Robert Fergusson, focusing on themes of Scottish and British identity, agricultural improvement, poetic self-fashioning, language, politics, religion, patronage, poverty, antiquarianism, and the animal world. The book offers interpretations of all Burns's major poems and some of the songs, the first to do so since Thomas Crawford's landmark study of 1960. It concludes with a new assessment of his importance for British Romanticism and to a ‘Four Nations’ understanding of Scottish literature and culture.
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This book is a reassessment of the writings of Robert Burns (1759–96), arguably the most original poet writing in Great Britain between Pope and Blake, and creator of the first modern vernacular style in British poetry. Although still celebrated as Scotland's national poet, Burns has long been marginalised in English literary studies worldwide, due to a mistaken view that his poetry is linguistically incomprehensible and of interest to Scottish readers only. This book challenges this view by interpreting Burns's poetry as an innovative and critical engagement with the experience of rural modernity, namely to the revolutionary transformation of Scottish agriculture and society in the decades between 1760 and 1800, thereby resituating it within the mainstream of the Scottish and European enlightenments. Detailed study of the literary, social, and historical contexts of Burns's poetry explodes the myth of the ‘Heaven-taught ploughman’, revealing his poetic artfulness and critical acumen as a social observer, as well as his significance as a Romantic precursor. The book discusses Burns's radical decision to write ‘Scots pastoral’ (rather than English georgic) poetry in the tradition of Allan Ramsay and Robert Fergusson, focusing on themes of Scottish and British identity, agricultural improvement, poetic self-fashioning, language, politics, religion, patronage, poverty, antiquarianism, and the animal world. The book offers interpretations of all Burns's major poems and some of the songs, the first to do so since Thomas Crawford's landmark study of 1960. It concludes with a new assessment of his importance for British Romanticism and to a ‘Four Nations’ understanding of Scottish literature and culture.
