Radicalism in British Literary Culture, 1650-1830 From Revolution to Revolution

In this volume of interdisciplinary essays, leading scholars examine the radical tradition in British literary culture from the English Revolution to the French Revolution. They chart continuities between the two periods and examine the recuperation of ideas and texts from the earlier period in the 1790s and beyond. Contributors utilize a variety of approaches and concepts: from gender studies, the cultural history of food and diet and the history of political discourse, to explorations of the theatre, philosophy and metaphysics. This volume argues that the radical agendas of the mid-seventeenth century, intended to change society fundamentally, did not disappear throughout the long eighteenth century only to be resuscitated at its close. Rather, through close textual analysis, these essays indicate a more continuous transmission.

List of illustrations; Notes on contributors; Acknowledgements; Introduction Timothy Morton and Nigel Smith; Part I. From Revolution: 1. 'May the last king be strangled in the bowels of the last priest': irreligion and the English Enlightenment, 1649–1789 Justin Champion; 2. Radicalism and replication Nigel Smith; 3. The plantation of wrath Timothy Morton; 4. They became what they beheld: theodicy and regeneration in Milton, Law and Blake Donald John; 5. Fasting women: the significance of gender and bodies in radical religion and politics, 1650–1813 Jane Shaw; Part II. To Revolution: 6. John Thelwall and the revolution of 1649 Michael Scrivener; 7. Women's private reading and political action, 1649–1838 Charlotte Sussman; 8. The strange career of Richard 'Citizen' Lee: poetry, popular radicalism, and enthusiasm in the 1790s Jon Mee; 9. William Cobbett, John Clare, and the agrarian politics of the English revolution James McKusick; 10. 'Not a reforming patriot but an ambitious tyrant': representations of Cromwell and the English republic in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Peter Kitson; 11. The republican prompt: connections in English radical culture Paul Hamilton.

An examination of the radical tradition in British literary culture from the English Revolution to the French Revolution, and charts continuities between the two periods.

Timothy Morton is Professor of English at Rice University, Houston.