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I am interested in the history of 'labouring class' poetry, which has of course become its own academic field - in addition to Peter's notes - Brian Maidment's groundbreaking anthology 'The Poorhouse Fugitives' http://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9780856359705still looked for exceptionality and castigates many of the poets featured for following 'outmoded' models, badly - but it contains much which has not been reprinted Bridget Keegan's British labouring-class nature poetry, 1730-1837 (essays but with lots of long quotations) works to correct this impression:http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/British_labouring_class_nature_poetry_17.html As a footnote, there's an echo of this history in Carcanet's debut volume from William Letfordhttp://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?owner_id=996 where his vocation as a roofer is flagged up Edmund > Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2012 11:07:12 +0100 > From: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: Fortnightly monthly > To: [log in to unmask] > > Ah but-- > > If you are "middle-class" does it follow that the poetry you write > will be "middle-class poetry"? That is the standard modern or Marxist > view, I suppose, of the inescapable assimilative process of social > position or wealth, -- your class totally infuses your mind, but I > think grave doubts are possible. Is Wordsworth's poetry "middle- > class poetry"? The (urban) middle-class didn't on the whole like it > very much. What class was "men" in the phrase "the language of men"? > when I was younger we believed in the concept "déclassé" and were > later revealed to come from various middle or lower class strata which > we never thought about. How would you class Douglas Oliver's poetry > now? (Not DO., but DO.'s poetry). Or John James'? > > Meanwhile, six large volumes have recently been published -- > John Goodridge (editor), Eighteenth Century English Labouring Class > Poets 1700-1800. 3 volumes, 2003 > John Goodridge (editor), Nineteenth Century English Labouring Class > Poets 1800-1900. 3 volumes, 2006 > > This enormous collection constitutes something like 10 percent, at a > guess, of the published poetry under these headings. The authors are > agricultural labourers, carters, weavers (especially weavers), > artisans of various kinds, etc. (Burns and Clare are more-or-less > omitted because already well in-print (though Burns is actually not > very well available because of disregard of the song music)). So there > was an enormous amount of activity, whether more or less than activity > elsewhere I don't know. > > The bulk of this poetry is, I would say, clearly "middle-class", and > a lot of it is modeled on people like Wordsworth and Thompson. It is > predominantly provincial / northern. Chartist poetry is strong among > it but not all Chartist poets were labouring class. I find there is a > lot of admirable writing here and a great variety, which comes open to > you if you stop worrying about locating exceptionality, though that > quality is not absent. Most people educated in Eng Lit, like me, were > taught to seek and trust only exceptionality, and that that > constituted the history of it. > > PR > > > > > > On 2 Aug 2012, at 10:17, [log in to unmask] wrote: > > > That's not quite true, I'm afraid. Protestants had a thing about > > books, and printers were both working-class and occupationally > > disposed to some kind of literacy. I think E.P.Thompson could be of > > assistance on that. Certainly the Corresponding Societies that > > people like Francis Place figured implied the existence of reading > > working classes. While all those Bible quoting millenarians of the > > 17th century civil upheavals were presumably not relying on someone > > to read for them. Would you consider John Bunyan middle-class? Even > > before Clare and Blake there are people like Stephen Duck or Anne > > Yeardesley or John Taylor the Water-Poet while a lot of those > > Elizabethan playwrighting poets came from poor backgrounds, Marlowe > > or Ben Jonson for instance. Even Spenser seems to have been a > > journeyman clothmaker's son. While others like Donne or Pope had > > Catholic connections which made them just as socially ambiguous as > > poor scholars. While I don't feel I need to go into detail about > > those from the upper reaches: the Sidneys, Herberts, Shelley, Byron, > > Wyatt, the Cavalier poets etc etc. > > That's all true, and I really neglected that dissenting tradition. > Besides, your list makes evident that the terms of middle-class etc > are dynamic through the centuries, it is not that easy to box > individual poets away. But multiple exceptions as there are, I still > suppose that the bulk of literature (not the good stuff, just the > bulk) has tended to be produced by e.g doctors, parsons, teachers and > their non-working daughters, but not by grooms and milkmaids and wet- > nurses and miners. But perhaps this is partly a myth, perhaps the > literature itself has often denied its more interesting origins in > order to wear a coat of gentility? > > > In fact I feel a terrible itch to rewrite your last 'it's a > > reasonable assumption that the body of English poetry that's been > > written down exists despite the work of middle-class authors' but of > > course I'm not going to do that as it would be a terrible thing to do. > > Well, I almost wrote something like that myself. If the bulk of poetry > and its readers is characterized by middle-classness, then the things > that stand out often reflect some unusual imput from elsewhere. The > labouring world that most writers know so little about (in my view) > has been one of the great reservoirs of new vitality through the > centuries. That would explain why, as Jamie says, its not often that a > writer gets kudos just for being middle-class, because that's just the > dull norm position. > > (It's now come into my mind that Chesterton wrote in praise of > Browning's South London lower-middle-classness, rather in the tones of > J.G. Ballard praising the exoticism of suburbia; obviously that kind > of praise depended on finer distinctions than the broad triple band of > Cleese Barker and Corbett.)