Title: Literary minstrelsy, 1770-1830
First published: 2008
Description: "Literary Minstrelsy, 1770-1830 argues that Romantic-era writers used the figure of the minstrel to imagine authorship as a social, responsive enterprise unlike the solitary process portrayed by Romantic myths of the lone genius. Simpson demonstrates that the minstrel was central to developments as varied as the introduction of the word 'improvisation' into English through portrayals of Italian improvisers, the rivalry between Wordsworth and Byron in the 1810s, and the emergence of poems that dramatized ancient minstrel contests to address the competitive dynamics of the literary marketplace. Reading The Last of the Mohicans alongside a wide range of materials from early nineteenth-century print culture, the book's final chapter draws out the project's implications for the emergence of transatlantic blackface minstrelsy in the 1830s and 1840s."--Jacket.
Subjects: History and criticism, English literature, Irish authors, Authorship in literature, American literature, Romanticism, Minstrels in literature, English literature, history and criticism, 19th century, Minstrels, English literature, history and criticism, 18th century, English literature, irish authors, history and criticism, American literature, history and criticism, 19th century, Authorship
Time periods: 19th century, 18th century
LC classification: PR468.M55 S56 2008