British Labouring-Class Nature Poetry, 1730–1837 PDF
Preview British Labouring-Class Nature Poetry, 1730–1837
British Labouring-Class Nature Poetry, 1730–1837 Bridget Keegan British Labouring-Class Nature Poetry, 1730–1837 AlsobyBridgetKeegan LITERATUREANDNATURE(co-editedwithJamesC.McKusick) EIGHTEENTH-CENTURYLABOURING-CLASSPOETS(editorofVolume2) ROBERTBLOOMFIELD:Lyric,ClassandtheRomanticCanon(co-editedwith SimonWhiteandJohnGoodridge) British Labouring-Class Nature Poetry, 1730–1837 Bridget Keegan CreightonUniversity ©BridgetKeegan2008 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2008978-0-230-53696-8 Allrightsreserved.Noreproduction,copyortransmissionofthis publicationmaybemadewithoutwrittenpermission. Noparagraphofthispublicationmaybereproduced,copiedortransmitted savewithwrittenpermissionorinaccordancewiththeprovisionsofthe Copyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988,orunderthetermsofanylicence permittinglimitedcopyingissuedbytheCopyrightLicensingAgency, 90TottenhamCourtRoad,LondonW1T4LP. Anypersonwhodoesanyunauthorizedactinrelationtothispublication maybeliabletocriminalprosecutionandcivilclaimsfordamages. Theauthorhasassertedherrighttobeidentified astheauthorofthisworkinaccordancewiththeCopyright, DesignsandPatentsAct1988. Firstpublished2008by PALGRAVEMACMILLAN Houndmills,Basingstoke,HampshireRG216XSand 175FifthAvenue,NewYork,N.Y.10010 Companiesandrepresentativesthroughouttheworld PALGRAVEMACMILLANistheglobalacademicimprintofthePalgrave MacmillandivisionofSt.Martin’sPress,LLCandofPalgraveMacmillanLtd. Macmillan(cid:2)isaregisteredtrademarkintheUnitedStates,UnitedKingdom andothercountries.PalgraveisaregisteredtrademarkintheEuropean Unionandothercountries. ISBN 978-1-349-35871-7 ISBN 978-0-230-58390-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230583900 Thisbookisprintedonpapersuitableforrecyclingandmadefromfully managedandsustainedforestsources.Logging,pulpingandmanufacturing processesareexpectedtoconformtotheenvironmentalregulationsofthe countryoforigin. AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Keegan,Bridget. Britishlabouring-classnaturepoetry,1730(cid:3)1837/BridgetKeegan. p. cm. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. 1. Englishpoetry“18thcentury“Historyandcriticism. 2. English poetry“19thcentury“Historyandcriticism. 3. Natureinliterature. 4. Workingclasswritings,English“Historyandcriticism. 5. Working classauthors“GreatBritain“Aesthetics. I. Title. PR555.N3K442008 821(cid:2).609920623“dc22 2008011807 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 ForeverythingIfeltalove, Theweedsbelow,thebirdsabove, Andweedsthatbloomedinsummer’shours, Ithoughttheyshouldbereckonedflowers; Theymadeagardenfreeforall AndsoIlovedthemgreatandsmall Andsungofsomethatpleasedmyeye, NorcouldIpassthethistleby Butpausedandthoughtitcouldnotbe Aweedinnature’spoesy. –JohnClare,from‘TheProgressofRhyme’ This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgements viii ListofAbbreviations xi Introduction:‘AWeedinNature’sPoesy’–British Labouring-ClassNaturePoetry,1730–1837 1 1 ‘TheFieldsHisStudy’:RobertBloomfield’sPoeticsof Sustainability 10 2 ReturntotheGarden:JamesWoodhouseandPolite Cultivations 37 3 HeavenlyProspects:ViewsFromCliftonandCliffden 65 4 WritingAgainsttheCurrent:AnneWilson’sTeisaand Labouring-ClassRiverPoetry 98 5 ‘WhatTermsofArtCanNature’sPow’rsExpress?’:William FalconerandLabouring-ClassPoetryatSea 122 6 ‘AndAllisNakednessandFen’:JohnClare’sWetlands 148 Conclusion:ThePoliticsandPoeticsofWood–Labouring- ClassPoetryintheVictorianEra 172 Notes 193 Index 212 vii Acknowledgements Almost20yearsago,myundergraduatetutor,SvetlanaBoym,gaveme some advice that changed the course of my professional future. Upon hearingthenamesofthewell-knownauthorsIplannedtowriteabout in my dissertation, she said simply, ‘You should work on someone non-canonical’.IhadonlyrecentlydiscoveredJohnClare,whosework challengedmyassumptionsaboutRomanticpoetry.Itwasthankstosev- eraldedicatedClareeditors,includingthelateGeoffreySummerfield,the lateMargaretGrainger,EricRobinson,DavidPowellandP.M.S.Dawson, that I was able to make my discovery. I join an entire generation of Clare scholars in expressing my gratitude for their tireless efforts and commitmenttopublishingthecompleteworks. While only very loosely related to the topic of my dissertation, this book represents the latest expression of my 20-year fascination with Clare’swriting.Mydesiretoexplorethebroadercontextswithinwhich he wrote was the initial motivation for this study. Clare’s response to the natural world is undeniably original, but he was not the only poet fromlabouring-classoriginswhowroteabouttheenvironment.Earlier scholars such as Raymond Williams had begun to sketch this particu- largenealogyforClare’swriting,butduringthemanyyearsthatIhave workedonthisprojectIhavebeenastoundedanddelightedbythetrue depthofthearchivethathadremainedunexamined. That archive is, thankfully, not one that I have had to plumb alone. I have been able to build on the important research of other scholars, and my debt to them is enormous. First and foremost are my ‘Elsie’ collaborators: John Goodridge, Bill Christmas, Simon Kovesi, David Fairer,ScottMcEathron,TimBurke,andKayeKossick.JohnGoodridge read – and often patiently edited – large portions of this book. He has been a constant ally and source of inspiration. His intellectual and personal generosity is without par. I gratefully acknowledge his and John Lucas’s permission to quote from their edition of Robert Bloom- field. Bill Christmas also read sections of the book and made sure I didn’t give up on the project when it would have been easy to do so. Intrepid Clare editor Simon Kovesi showed me what true intellectual viii Acknowledgements ix risktakingis.Heisthemodelofscholarlyintegrity,andI’mgratefulfor his friendship. With Simon, Sam Ward assisted at an especially critical late stage in the project. I’ve been blessed by the support of numerous friendsfromamongthebroadercommunityofClareans,Bloomfieldians andscholarsofeighteenth-andnineteen-centurypoetry,includingJim McKusick, Bob Heyes, Simon White, Tim Fulford, Donna Landry, Bill Jones, Alan Vardy, Gary Harrison, Mina Gorji, Sarah Zimmerman, Sue Edney,RichardGreene,KevinBinfield,PaulChirico,StephenBending, StephenBehrendt,DavidWorrall,AnneJanowitz,DavidSimpson,John Sitter, Kate Rigby, Kevin Hutchings and the members of the Robert Bloomfieldsociety,especiallythelatePhilipHoskins. Chris Mounsey and Scott Lewis made sure that I never spent a dull or lonely moment at the British Library, and Lorna Clymer kept my spiritsupwhilethere,attheHuntingtonandatmanytimesandplaces inbetween.Awritercouldnothopeformorecongenialandintelligent company.Closertohome,I’vebeenfortunatetohavetheassistanceof several graduate students, including Matthew Lowe, Natalie Roxburgh and Amber Haschenburger. Colleagues at Creighton provided help of variouskindsoverthepast12years.IwishtothankinparticularJackie Masker, Brent Spencer, Rob Dornsife, Greg Zacharias, Lorie Vanchena, Geoff Bakewell, Rose Hill, Bob Whipple, Susan Aizenberg and Brooke Stafford.ThepreviousandcurrentDeansatCreighton,TimAustinand Bob Kennedy, and the previous and current Graduate Deans, Barbara BradenandGailJensen,providedvaluablesupport,includingsabbatical funding, summer research grants and funding for research assistance. During the time I was working on portions of this book, I was the beneficiary of a summer grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and a Huntington Library grant; I gratefully acknowledge thesupportofthoseorganizations. Librarians and staff members at the British Library, the Huntington Library, the Houghton Library and the Bodleian Library helped with access to what were often very obscure texts. The Peterborough MuseumandArtGallery,theNorthamptonLibraryandthePforzheimer Collection of the New York Public Library made available microfilms of manuscripts in their collections. I am grateful to Microform Aca- demic Publishers, Wakefield, for permission to transcribe quotations from its microfilm edition of the Clare manuscripts. I wish also to thank Paula Kennedy, Christabel Scaife and Steven Hall at Palgrave for their patience and professionalism at all stages. I am deeply obliged to the anonymous reader at Palgrave who offered generous, thoughtful correctionsandideasforrevision.
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