Richard Polwhele and Romantic Culture: The Politics of Reaction and the Poetics of Place

Richard Polwhele was a writer of rare energies who was a historian, translator, memoirist, and poet. This book recovers the lost Polwhele, locating him within an archipelagic understanding of the vitality and complexity inherent in the loyalist tradition with British Romantic culture via a range of previously unexamined texts and manuscript sources. His outspoken contributions across a range of disciplines testify to the variety and dynamism of what has previously been considered provincial and reactionary. This volume will be of interest to those working in the field of late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century British Literature, with a particular focus on politics and on the nature of literary production and identity across the non-metropolitan areas of the British Isles.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 206 pages
Publication date: 01 August 2022
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Richard Polwhele was a writer of extraordinary vitality. Today, he is best remembered for his controversial work, The Unsexd Females, which targeted radical women writers. However, Polwhele was a multifaceted individual, serving as a historian, translator, memoirist, and poet. Despite his humble beginnings as an indigent Cornish gentleman clergyman and JP, his extensive written output encompassed sermons, open letters, and even headstone verse. This book aims to reclaim the lost legacy of Polwhele, placing him within an archipelagic understanding of the vitality and complexity inherent in the loyalist tradition with British Romantic culture through a range of previously unexamined texts and manuscript sources.

Polwhele's life was a constant struggle between his desire for sociability and his insatiable appetite for engaging in spirited debates. His outspoken contributions across various disciplines serve as a testament to the diversity and dynamism of what was previously considered provincial and reactionary. This book seeks to locate Polwhele's work within the key preoccupations of his time: the social, economic, and political valences of literary sociability in the age of print; the meaning of loyalism in an age of revolution; the significance of place and belonging; enthusiasm, whether religious or otherwise; and the self-fashioning of the provincial man of letters. By doing so, it argues for a broader definition of Romanticism than the one that has pigeonholed Polwhele as an unappealing embarrassment and the anachronistic voice of provincial High Tory reaction.

This volume will be of immense interest to scholars and researchers working in the field of late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century British Literature, with a particular focus on politics and on the nature of literary production and identity across the non-metropolitan areas of the British Isles. Polwhele's unique perspective and his ability to navigate the complexities of his era make him a valuable addition to the literary landscape, and this book will shed new light on his remarkable life and work.

Weight: 400g
Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367651596