Poetry and Jacobite politics in eighteenth-century Britain and Ireland
By: Murray G.H. Pittock.
Series: Cambridge studies in eighteenth-century English literature and thought ;; 23
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1994
Place of publication: Cambridge; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 254
Subjects: English literature -- 18th century -- History and criticism -- Theory, etc.; Politics and literature -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century.; Popular literature -- Great Britain -- History and criticism.; Politics and literature -- Ireland -- History -- 18th century.; Popular literature -- Ireland -- History and criticism.; Celtic literature -- History and criticism.; Canon (Literature); Jacobites.; Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 18th century.; Ireland -- Politics and government -- 18th century.
Description: The project of this book is to question and rewrite assumptions about the nature of the Augustan era through an exploration of Jacobite ideology. Taking as its starting point the fundamental ambivalence of the Augustan concept the author studies canonical and non-canonical literature and uncovers a new 'four nations' literary history of the period defined in terms of struggle for control of the language of authority between Jacobite and Hanoverian writers.

This struggle is seen to have crystallized Irish and Scottish opposition to the British state. The Jacobite cause generated powerful popular literature and the sources explored include ballads, broadsides and writing in Scots, Irish, Welsh and Gaelic. The author concludes that the literary history we inherit is built on the political outcome of the Revolution of 1688.
Notes: Includes bibliographical referenceS (p. 243-250) and index.