Romantic Poet-Critics and the Uses of Genre, 1798-1821

Abstract

This thesis examines literary-critical writings, across a variety of genres, by British Romantic era poets: William Wordsworth’s prefaces (1798-1815), Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s lectures (1808-19) and Biographia Literaria (1817), Lord Byron’s English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809), James Hogg’s The Poetic Mirror (1816), Thomas Love Peacock’s ‘The Four Ages of Poetry’ (1820), and Percy Shelley’s ‘A Defence of Poetry’ (1821). I argue that the critical ideas of Romantic poet-critics are shaped by their authors’ uses, and engagement with the idea, of genre. These poets were as conscious of genre, and as innovative in their uses of it, in their critical prose as they were in their poetry. Each chapter focuses on a particular generic form: prefaces, public lectures, satire, and defences of poetry. Chapter One argues that Wordsworth’s construction of the perfect critic in his prefaces builds a defensive wall to protect his poems from reviewers, while Coleridge’s playful use of paratexts ironically undermines his critical tenets. Chapter Two explores how Coleridge’s lectures map a unique terrain for literary studies by imitating the popular genre of the scientific lecture. Chapter Three shows that the satires of Byron and Hogg simultaneously imitate, parody, and mock the periodical giant of the day, the Edinburgh Review, and its antagonists. In the final chapter, I argue that Peacock’s ‘The Four Ages’ defends his withdrawal from the classical genre of tragedy in favour of comedy. Conversely, Shelley’s ‘Defence’ revises his beliefs on poetry in order to negotiate conflicting philosophical and historicist defences against attacks by Peacock and Plato. In my reading, poet-critics are not insiders offering a behind-the-scenes view of poetry-writing. They shape and are shaped by the private and public concerns of their historical moment. In a combative literary culture, Romantic poet-critics are interested parties in the battle for the relevance and purpose of poetry.