Romantic Poetry and Literary Coteries ― The Dialect of the Tribe

How does Romantic poetry read if seen as the product of social authorship—the group language of coteries of writers, editors, publishers and critics—rather than as a series of verbal icons—original lyrics and romances composed by individual geniuses? Romantic Poetry and Literary Coteries explores Romanticism as a discourse characterized by tropes and forms that were jointly produced by literary circles - writing communities - in self-conscious opposition to prevailing social and political values and in deliberate differentiation from the normal practices of contemporary print culture. Among the tropes examined are allusion and borrowing; among the forms discussed are blank-verse effusions, political squibs, magazine essays, millenarian prophecies, long-form notebook verse, illustrated tour poems and prose journals. Coteries considered include the Southey/Coleridge circle, including Bowles, Cottle, Cowper, Lamb, Lloyd, Robinson and Wordsworth; the Bloomfield circle, including Capel Lofft and Thomas Hood; the Clare circle, including Byron, Cowper, William Knight and John Taylor; the Cockneys, including Richard Brothers, William Bryan, De Quincey, Hood, Leigh Hunt, Robert Mudie, Patmore.

Tim Fulford is Professor of English at De Montfort University, UK. His most recent publications include The Late Poetry of the Lake Poets, The Collected Letters of Robert Southey, and Robert Southey: Poetical Works 1811-38. He is currently editing the Collected Letters of Sir Humphry Davy.