The Poetry and the Politics: Radical Reform in Victorian England Contributor(s): James, Gregory (Author), Gregory, James (Author) |
|
![]() |
ISBN: 1780767234 ISBN-13: 9781780767239 Publisher: I. B. Tauris & Company OUR PRICE: $158.40 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: October 2014 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - History | Europe - Great Britain - General - Political Science | History & Theory - General - Literary Criticism |
Dewey: 322.44 |
Series: Library of Victorian Studies |
Physical Information: 1.5" H x 5.6" W x 8.6" (1.23 lbs) 352 pages |
Themes: - Cultural Region - British Isles |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: The nineteenth century was a time of 'movements' - political, social, moral reform causes - which drew on the energies of men and women across Britain. This book studies radical reform at the margins of early Victorian society, focusing on decades of particular social, political and technological ferment: when foreign and British promoters of extravagant technologically assisted utopias could attract many hundreds of supporters of limited means, persuaded to escape grim conditions by emigration to South America; when pioneers of vegetarianism joined the ranks of the temperance movement; and when working-class Chartists, reviving a struggle for political reform, seemed to threaten the State for a brief moment in April 1848. Through the forgotten figure of James Elmslie Duncan, 'shabby genteel' poet and self-proclaimed 'Apostle of the Messiahdom', The Poetry and the Politics considers themes including poetry's place in radical culture, the response of pantomime to the Chartist challenge to law and order, and associations between madness and revolution.Duncan became a promoter of the technological fantasies of John Adolphus Etzler, a poet of science who prophesied a future free from drudgery, through machinery powered by natural forces. |