Literary Egalitarianism: A Study of the Relationship Between "Popular" and "High" Literature in the Romantic Period

FAIN: FA-11314-76

Frances Ferguson
University of California, Berkeley (Baltimore, MD 21218-2608)

To study the relationship between "popular" literature and "high" literature in the Romantic period. The book which this study will lead to will study the sentimental novel of the 18th century, thus opening the question of the importance of the epistolary novel as a didactic form which was to teach and to appeal to an expanding reading public. Children's literature--moralized verses and primers--will also be a major concern. Major poets, such as Wordsworth and Coleridge, attempted in some of their poetry and prose to examine and imagine the processes of education. This work is intended to test the ways in which the Romantics define literature-the degree of literacy necessary for literature.