William Cobbett: The Politics of Style

by Leonora Nattrass

Overview

This book offers the first thoroughgoing literary analysis of William Cobbett as a writer. Leonora Nattrass explores the nature and effect of Cobbett's rhetorical strategies, through close examination of a broad selection of his polemical writings from his early American journalism onward. She examines the political implications of Cobbett's style within the broader context of eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century political prose, and argues that his perceived ideological and stylistic flaws—inconsistency, bigotry, egoism and political nostalgia—are in fact strategies designed to appeal to a range of usually polarized reading audiences.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521460361
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/12/1995
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Romanticism , #11
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.34(w) x 9.29(h) x 0.91(d)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; A chronology of Cobbett's life; Introduction: change and continuity; Part I. The Creation of Cobbett: 1. Early writings 1792–1800; 2. A version of reaction; 3. Oppositional styles 1804–16; 4. Representing Old England; Part II. Cobbett and his Audience: 5. Dialogue and debate; 6. A radical history; 7. Tracts and teaching; 8. Constituting the nation; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

'[This] valuable book makes it possible even for those who find Cobbett's ideas in themselves too often naive, wrongheaded, or repellent, to continue to admire his art. It also goes far to account for Cobbett's undoubtedly enormous influence in his day.' James Sambrook, Romanticism

From the Publisher