Eighteen Hundred and Eleven
Poetry, Protest and Economic Crisis

A wide-ranging analysis of the economic crisis of 1811 through the lens of a controversial poem.

E. J. Clery (Author)

9781107189225, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 9 June 2017

326 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2.2 cm, 0.61 kg

'… Clery produces masterful scholarship, artistically crafted. This immensely satisfying book is a model of superb research and the most illuminating rendering to date of the poem and its significance.' Scott Krawczyk, Keats-Shelley Journal

In 1811 England was on the brink of economic collapse and revolution. The veteran poet and campaigner Anna Letitia Barbauld published a prophecy of the British nation reduced to ruins by its refusal to end the interminable war with France, titled Eighteen Hundred and Eleven. Combining ground-breaking historical research with incisive textual analysis, this new study dispels the myth surrounding the hostile reception of the poem and takes a striking episode in Romantic-era culture as the basis for exploring poetry as a medium of political protest. Clery examines the issues at stake, from the nature of patriotism to the threat to public credit, and throws new light on the views and activities of a wide range of writers, including radical, loyalist and dissenting journalists, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, and Barbauld herself. Putting a woman writer at the centre of the enquiry opens up a revised perspective on the politics of Romanticism.

Introduction: the puzzle and the myth
Part I. The Making of Eighteen Hundred and Eleven: 1. Economic warfare
2. Writing for the enemy
3. Commercial dissent
4. Stoic patriotism
5. The prophet motive
6. Ruin: doing the policy in different voices
7. Lady credit
Part II. What Happened Next: 8. Publication to vindication: a chronology
9. The summer of 1812 and after
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC], Poetry by individual poets [DCF], Poetry [DC]