British Poetry and National Identity en route, 1824-1868

FAIN: FA-54989-10

Jason Robert Rudy
University of Maryland, College Park (College Park, MD 20742-5141)

This study analyzes nineteenth-century British poetry in a global context, from poems printed on ships sailing to Australia to poetry written in letters and journals by British citizens traveling in India, Chile, and Canada. This alternative archive of British poetry composed from abroad reshapes our understanding of poetry written during this period and, more important, suggests how poetry reflects upon and influences the construction of national identity both at home and in the world at large. The project asks questions long central to humanistic studies, but--in its global purview--frames them in importantly different ways. My work gives especial attention to poetry written by women and working-class writers. I am committed to an interdisciplinary approach that borrows from emerging work in cosmopolitan studies and that balances literary studies (close reading, textual analysis), cultural history, and political theory.

Associated Products

Floating Worlds: Émigré Poetry and British Culture (Article)
Title: Floating Worlds: Émigré Poetry and British Culture
Author: James R. Rudy
Abstract: Victorian emigrant ships headed to the Australian colonies carried printing presses and published newspapers on board for the entertainment of passengers; the emigrants themselves generated most of the content. Based on archival work in Australia, South Africa, and England, this essay analyzes poetry published in these ship newspapers, and shows how emigrant poems engage both nostalgically and parodically with canonic poetry of the period: works by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Thomas Hood. Shipboard emigrant poems showcase the process of transition from home to abroad, British citizen to colonial subject; they offer an important view into the culture of Victorian emigration and colonialism.
Year: 2014
Primary URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/elh/summary/v081/81.1.rudy.html
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: ELH Volume 81, Number 1
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press

Imagined Homelands: British Poetry in the Colonies (Book)
Title: Imagined Homelands: British Poetry in the Colonies
Author: Jason R. Rudy
Abstract: In tracing the histories of these poems and the poets who wrote them, this book provides an alternate account of nineteenth-century British poetry and, more broadly, of settler colonial culture.
Year: 2017
Primary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/title/imagined-homelands-british-poetry-in-the-colonies/oclc/1026986914&referer=brief_results
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9781421423920
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

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