Poetry and Jacobite Politics in Eighteenth-Century Britain and Ireland

by Murray G. H. Pittock

Overview

This book seeks to rewrite assumptions about the Augustan era through an exploration of Jacobite ideology. The author studies canonical and noncanonical literature and uncovers a new "four nations" literary history defined in terms of a struggle for control of the language of authority between Jacobite and Hanoverian writers. Sources explored include ballads in Scots, Irish, Welsh and Gaelic. The author concludes that the literary history of the Augustan age is built on the history of the victors in the Revolution of 1688.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521410922
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	10/27/1994
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Eighteenth-Century English Literature and Thought , #23
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.18(w) x 9.29(h) x 0.79(d)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Invasion and xenophobia; 2. The wee, wee German lairdie; 3. The codes of the canon; 4. Jacobite political culture in Scotland; 5. Jacobite culture in Ireland and Wales; 6. The demon's light; 7. The tartan curtain; Additional works; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"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

From the Publisher