John Thelwall: Selected Poetry and Poetics (Nineteenth-Century Major Lives and Letters) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1137344822 ISBN 13: 9781137344823

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015

Synopsis

John Thelwall: Selected Poetry and Poetics is the first modern edition of remarkably wide-ranging and original poetry and criticism of a Romantic-era polymath better known for his political activism than his literary art. John Thelwall stood at the forefront of the 'lost generation' of the 1790s and it wasn't until the late twentieth century that he regained his rightful place in history, as a generation of scholars argued for his significance as a 'maker of the English working class.' A cogent preface introduces his key theories, and eight essays and 125 fully-annotated poems are produced in context with correspondence with major contemporaries from Blake to Byron, historical traditions, and recent critical paradigms of sociable, performative, and gendered romanticism. Drawing on newly-discovered manuscripts, this book offers a representative selection that complements recent editions of Thelwall's political writing, plays and novels, and contributes to an ongoing project of archival rediscovery and critical revival.

About this title

Review:

"Judith Thompson's John Thelwall: Selected Poetry and Poetics amounts to a major accomplishment, at once accelerating the revival of Thelwall, and providing a much needed resource for work and pleasure in Romantic era studies. It is a treasure-house curated by expert archival scholarship, editorial savvy, and critical insight. With a smartly devised introduction, Thompson presents poet Thelwall (famously brave political activist) in the range and originality of the genres he exercised and transformed: pastoral and peripatetic, comic ballads, satires and seditious allegories, sonnets routine and innovative, odes (public and Pindaric), conversation poems, effusions, love songs, epic and autobiography, and essays on poetic principles." - Susan J. Wolfson, Professor of English, Princeton University, USA
 
"This superb edition contains selections from the entire range of Thelwall's poetry, including previously unpublished work, together with extracts from his critical writing. Organized by genre, Thelwall's own preferred method, the volume reveals a daringly experimental poet-theorist whose contribution to the Romantic literary revolution can now be explored by modern readers for the first time. Thompson, the leading interpreter of his poetry and discoverer of the Derby Manuscript which has transformed Thelwall studies, brings her expertise to bear through skillful editing and annotation and an insightful critical introduction which takes readers to the heart of Thelwall's poetic project." - David Duff, Professor of Language and Literature, University of Aberdeen, Scotland 

About the Author:

Judith Thompson is Professor of English at Dalhousie University, Canada. She is the author of John Thelwall in the Wordsworth Circle: The Silenced Partner and the editor or co-editor of several volumes by or about this leading romantic radical, including digital multimedia productions. She is currently writing Thelwall's biography.

About this edition

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1137344822
• ISBN 13: 9781137344823
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 339
• Editor: Thompson J.