Anne F. Janowitz:

55) Lyric and Labour in the Romantic Tradition.

Cambridge 1998

Anne F. Janowitz, an American scholar of eighteenth-century literary culture, traces in this publication the legacy of Romanticism in the radical literature of the 19th century, from Chartist poetry up to the lyrics of the socialist movements. In a series of case studies, she analyses how political poets such as Thomas Spence, Allen Davenport, Thomas Cooper and Ernest Jones were infected by the Romantic tradition. The final chapter focuses on the works of Linton and William Morris, “of two poets within whose political poetics the dynamic engagement of romanticism is again played out, but in the changed circumstances of the post-chartist world. (...) Linton and Morris barely knew one another, but they are interesting mirror figures. Both men were poets and artist-artisans, and both also devoted energy as well as their callings as political activists, writers, and journalists. (...) They were both influenced by Shelley, and between them, they were responsible for assimilating Blake to the radical poetic tradition.” The section on Linton provides a substantiated abstract of the formation of his political poetry.