Read more
This book explores the complex and contested relationships that existed between class, patronage, and poetry in Hanoverian England by examining the life and work of Stephen Duck, the 'famous threshing poet'. Duck's remarkable story reveals the tolerances, and intolerances, of the Hanoverian social order.
List of contents
- Introduction: 'All mankind would make a figure'
- 1: 'A Man grown up into an Excellent Poet all at once': Making the Poet
- 2: ''Tis agreeable to see what use he has made of his Reading': Writing 'The Thresher's Labour'
- 3: 'From the Author's own Original Manuscript': Publishing 'the famous Threshing Poet'
- 4: 'For Duck can thresh, you know, as well as write': Becoming 'the famous Threshing Poet'
- 5: 'The Duty of a grateful Muse': Writing at Court
- 6: 'Various Beauties overpay my Toil': Reimaging Landscape and Labour
- 7: 'Too Severe on the Female Sex'?: Negotiating Class and Gender
- 8: 'A very agreeable Conversation': Making Friends with Horace
- 9: 'Some Gentleman-like Title, as that of The Revd': Joining the Clergy
- Conclusion: 'The Bard may die - the Thresher still survive'
About the author
Jennifer Batt is a Lecturer in English at the University of Bristol
Summary
This book explores the complex and contested relationships that existed between class, patronage, and poetry in Hanoverian England by examining the life and work of Stephen Duck, the 'famous threshing poet'. Duck's remarkable story reveals the tolerances, and intolerances, of the Hanoverian social order.
Additional text
The first monograph devoted to working-class poet Stephen Duck (1705-56) to appear in some hundred years, Class, Patronage, and Poetry in Hanoverian England is more than a critical study of a single poet, though it is that. Batt (Univ. of Bristol, UK) also uses Duck to explore issues of class and patronage in 18th-century Britain. ... A valuable resource on 18th-century culture and poetry.
