Poetry and Jacobite Politics in Eighteenth-Century Britain and Ireland

Description

The aim of this book is to question assumptions about the nature of the Augustan era through an exploration of Jacobite ideology. Taking as its starting point the fundamental ambivalence of the Augustan concept the author studies canonical and non-canonical literature and uncovers the 'four nations' literary history of the period defined in terms of a struggle for control of the language of authority between Jacobite and Hanoverian writers. This struggle is seen to have crystallized Irish and Scottish opposition to the British state. The Jacobite cause generated powerful popular literature and the sources explored include ballads, broadsides and writing in Scots, Irish, Welsh and Gaelic. The author concludes that the literary history we inherit is built on the political outcome of the Revolution of 1688.

"This book provides a valuable contribution to our understanding of the precarious state of the Union." Times Literary Supplement "This is a timely book with a passionate edge...By knitting together a great deal of overlooked or ignored scholarship in Scottish, Irish, and Welsh literature and developing a general interpretation of the significance of the Jacobite cause for their mutual resonance and development, Pittock has challenged the existing verities and offered an alternative theory, which literary historians will have to consider in future analyses of the context, message, and voice of eighteenth-century literature." Albion "This is a timely book with a passionate edge...By knitting together a great deal of overlooked or ignored scholarship in Scottish, Irish, and Welsh literature and developing a general interpretation of the significance of the Jacobite cause for their mutual resonance and development, Pittock has challenged the existing verities and (just as importantly) offered an alternative theory, which literary historians will have to consider in future analyses of the context, message, and voice of eighteenth-century literature." Albion "This is in many respects an impressive and learned volume, full of interest. It traces the vigor and variety of the Jacobite literary response to defeat and exile, from Dryden and savage, throughout Burns, Hogg and Scott." John Cannon, Journal of English and Germanic Philology "...this book provides an excellent introductory survey of the history of Jacobite poetic discourse, one that will no doubt be read for a very long time." Gerald MacLean, Modern Philology