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The first collection of its kind, Chartist Drama makes available
four plays written or performed by members of the Chartist movement
of the 1840s. Emerging from the lively counter-culture of this
protest campaign for democratic rights, these plays challenged
cultural as well as political hierarchies by adapting such
recognisable genres as melodrama, history plays, and tragedy for
performance in radically new settings. They include poet-activist
John Watkins's John Frost, which dramatises the gripping events of
the Newport rising, in which twenty-two Chartists lost their lives
in what was probably a misfired attempt to spark a nationwide
rebellion. Gregory Vargo's introduction and notes elucidate the
previously unexplored world of Chartist dramatic culture, a context
that promises to reshape what we know about early Victorian popular
politics and theatre. -- .
The first collection of its kind, Chartist Drama makes available
four plays written or performed by members of the Chartist movement
of the 1840s. Emerging from the lively counter-culture of this
protest campaign for democratic rights, these plays challenged
cultural as well as political hierarchies by adapting such
recognisable genres as melodrama, history plays, and tragedy for
performance in radically new settings. They include poet-activist
John Watkins's John Frost, which dramatises the gripping events of
the Newport rising, in which twenty-two Chartists lost their lives
in what was probably a misfired attempt to spark a nationwide
rebellion. Gregory Vargo's introduction and notes elucidate the
previously unexplored world of Chartist dramatic culture, a context
that promises to reshape what we know about early Victorian popular
politics and theatre. -- .
How does the literature and culture of early Victorian Britain look
different if viewed from below? Exploring the interplay between
canonical social problem novels and the journalism and fiction
appearing in the periodical press associated with working-class
protest movements, Gregory Vargo challenges long-held assumptions
about the cultural separation between the 'two nations' of rich and
poor in the Victorian era. The flourishing radical press was home
to daring literary experiments that embraced themes including
empire and economic inequality, helping to shape mainstream
literature. Reconstructing social and institutional networks that
connected middle-class writers to the world of working-class
politics, this book reveals for the first time acknowledged and
unacknowledged debts to the radical canon in the work of such
authors as Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle, Harriet Martineau and
Elizabeth Gaskell. What emerges is a new vision of Victorian social
life, in which fierce debates and surprising exchanges spanned the
class divide.
How does the literature and culture of early Victorian Britain look
different if viewed from below? Exploring the interplay between
canonical social problem novels and the journalism and fiction
appearing in the periodical press associated with working-class
protest movements, Gregory Vargo challenges long-held assumptions
about the cultural separation between the 'two nations' of rich and
poor in the Victorian era. The flourishing radical press was home
to daring literary experiments that embraced themes including
empire and economic inequality, helping to shape mainstream
literature. Reconstructing social and institutional networks that
connected middle-class writers to the world of working-class
politics, this book reveals for the first time acknowledged and
unacknowledged debts to the radical canon in the work of such
authors as Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle, Harriet Martineau and
Elizabeth Gaskell. What emerges is a new vision of Victorian social
life, in which fierce debates and surprising exchanges spanned the
class divide.
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