Charlotte Smith and the Sonnet: Form, Place and Tradition in the Late Eighteenth Century
This book offers the first full-length study of Charlotte Smith's Elegiac Sonnets and clarifies its 'place' - in multiple ways - in literary history as a work celebrated for 'making it new', yet deeply engaged with the literary past. It argues that Smith's sonnets are constituted by three intertwined concerns: with tradition, place and the sonnet form itself, whereby the subjects of Smith's sonnets - across birds, rivers, the sea, plants and flowers - are bound up with the literary context in which she wrote. Charlotte Smith and the Sonnet shows that Smith's verse engages more deeply with tradition than has hitherto been realised and revises our understanding not only of Smith's career but also of the sonnet in eighteenth-century England. The book also illuminates Smith's place in posterity, as a popular poet - influencing figures ranging from Wordsworth and Coleridge to Constable - who was subsequently obscured in literary history. It reveals the complex processes underpinning Smith's reception and paradoxical position from the late eighteenth century to the present day, and shows that the appropriation of place itself was an important way in which aspects of literary tradition have been negotiated and understood by Smith, her predecessors, contemporaries and successors.
1131510913
Charlotte Smith and the Sonnet: Form, Place and Tradition in the Late Eighteenth Century
This book offers the first full-length study of Charlotte Smith's Elegiac Sonnets and clarifies its 'place' - in multiple ways - in literary history as a work celebrated for 'making it new', yet deeply engaged with the literary past. It argues that Smith's sonnets are constituted by three intertwined concerns: with tradition, place and the sonnet form itself, whereby the subjects of Smith's sonnets - across birds, rivers, the sea, plants and flowers - are bound up with the literary context in which she wrote. Charlotte Smith and the Sonnet shows that Smith's verse engages more deeply with tradition than has hitherto been realised and revises our understanding not only of Smith's career but also of the sonnet in eighteenth-century England. The book also illuminates Smith's place in posterity, as a popular poet - influencing figures ranging from Wordsworth and Coleridge to Constable - who was subsequently obscured in literary history. It reveals the complex processes underpinning Smith's reception and paradoxical position from the late eighteenth century to the present day, and shows that the appropriation of place itself was an important way in which aspects of literary tradition have been negotiated and understood by Smith, her predecessors, contemporaries and successors.
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Charlotte Smith and the Sonnet: Form, Place and Tradition in the Late Eighteenth Century

Charlotte Smith and the Sonnet: Form, Place and Tradition in the Late Eighteenth Century

by Bethan Roberts
Charlotte Smith and the Sonnet: Form, Place and Tradition in the Late Eighteenth Century

Charlotte Smith and the Sonnet: Form, Place and Tradition in the Late Eighteenth Century

by Bethan Roberts

Overview

This book offers the first full-length study of Charlotte Smith's Elegiac Sonnets and clarifies its 'place' - in multiple ways - in literary history as a work celebrated for 'making it new', yet deeply engaged with the literary past. It argues that Smith's sonnets are constituted by three intertwined concerns: with tradition, place and the sonnet form itself, whereby the subjects of Smith's sonnets - across birds, rivers, the sea, plants and flowers - are bound up with the literary context in which she wrote. Charlotte Smith and the Sonnet shows that Smith's verse engages more deeply with tradition than has hitherto been realised and revises our understanding not only of Smith's career but also of the sonnet in eighteenth-century England. The book also illuminates Smith's place in posterity, as a popular poet - influencing figures ranging from Wordsworth and Coleridge to Constable - who was subsequently obscured in literary history. It reveals the complex processes underpinning Smith's reception and paradoxical position from the late eighteenth century to the present day, and shows that the appropriation of place itself was an important way in which aspects of literary tradition have been negotiated and understood by Smith, her predecessors, contemporaries and successors.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781789620177
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Publication date: 11/30/2019
Series: Romantic Reconfigurations Studies in Literature and Culture 1780 1850 , #9
Pages: 192
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Bethan Roberts is William Noble Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Liverpool.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction 1

1 The Eighteenth-Century Sonnet 11

2 Tradition 29

Nightingales 30

Streams 39

River Arun 43

Other Poetic Landscapes 60

3 Innovation 71

The Sea 72

Breaking 'the silent Sabbath of the grave': Sonnet XLIV 80

Giddy Brinks and Lucid Lines 91

4 Wider Prospect 99

Wider Prospect of the Sonnet Revival 100

Smith in Posterity: A Fragile Inheritance 112

5 Botany to Beachy Head 133

Goddess of Botany 135

Economies of Vegetation 140

Charlotte Smith and the Sonnet

Gossamer 146

Beachy Head 151

Bibliography 161

Index 175

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Literature
Literary Criticism
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Literature, Modern->18th century->History and criticism
Literature
Literary Criticism
General & Miscellaneous Literary Criticism
Modern Literature
Literature, Modern->18th century->History and criticism

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