The Form of Poetry in the 1820s and 1830s: A Period of Doubt by David Stewart

Abstract

 Reviews e Form of Poetry in the s and s: A Period of Doubt. By D S. (Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and the Cultures of Print) Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. . ix+ pp. £.. ISBN –– ––. In this wide-ranging and meticulously researched book, David Stewart offers a reconsideration of ‘the time between Romanticism and Victorianism in which little happened’ (p. ). Building upon the work of Richard Cronin, James Chandler, Michael Bradshaw, Emily Rohrbach, and others, he explores, through subtle and convincing close reading, the poetry which was actually produced, published, and read in the –s by both canonical and largely forgotten or marginalized writers. He argues for a reconsideration of how we in turn read these writers, or, indeed, reframe our own inability to do so. Stewart’s thesis is that a ‘culture of doubt prompted poetic creativity of a new kind’ (p. ). He sees this creativity as marked by reflexiveness and a fascination with canon-forming in the mania for lists of ‘living poets’, balanced by a preoccupation with death, and a sense of already being dead. In a favourite and recurring word, he ‘traces’ this doubt specifically through responses to, and publication in, the annuals of the period. He identifies three kinds of poetry, or at least claims about the nature of poetry, both at the time and in recent criticism, which he argues in fact collapse into each other: a kind of transcendent aestheticism, poetry concerned with its immediate point of publication and appeal, and light verse which is both apparently superficial and yet formally sophisticated. He notes, with typical perceptiveness, of the first group: eir focus upon aestheticism as a means of reaching beyond their age is oen curiously dependent on the instantiation of that aestheticism in the form of pointedly material books available for sale, beautifully bound in fashionable bookshops. (p. ) is general argument has one particularly fascinating focus in the interest in the use of the trope of the apparition which is shared by Hemans and Beddoes, who are otherwise ‘fixed’ (p. ) as very different kinds of poet by their prospective contemporary critical champions. Of course, an irony not lost here is that many of the writers considered are grouped around the tension between those who might be firmly in our own canons and those who still tend to be excluded or are part of a special pleading—omas Moore, Landon, Hemans, Beddoes, and in a different way Clare, and even less familiar writers such as Darley, J. H Reynolds, and Praed. Although the emphasis here is on what otherwise might be considered to be late, or in some cases not even late, Romantic poets, it also suggests a reconsideration of Browning and Tennyson. Leigh Hunt is seen ‘as a model for the aesthetic’ (p. ) considerations of other writers here—underplaying perhaps the politics of the Cockney Hunt. And here, too, Byron is a key figure, if only brought into play in the Conclusion. In offering a reconsideration of ‘light verse’ and the use of the pun in particular, Stewart notes, through McGann, that we might simply not know how to read this stuff. is is a fair point but it might also be true that some of it is just superficial—as opposed MLR, .,   to Stewart’s view that superficiality is its own positive end (p. )—or, worse yet, simply bad. roughout, Stewart asks how ‘the confluence of poetry, commerce and gender’ might be ‘read securely’ (p. ) not only in this period but more widely. He speculates (another key repeated word) both about how reading took place at the time and more recently in critical accounts of the reading process offered by key figures such as McGann and Ross. at such reading is possible through close attention to detail and a sophisticated sense of competing critical and ideological frames is admirably demonstrated here. at the work examined suggests ‘poetic creativity of a new kind’ (p. ) in an absolute sense is less clear. U  W T S D P W Editors Construct the Renaissance Canon, –. By P S. (Early Modern Literature in History) Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. . ix+ pp.£.. ISBN ––––. is short book...