Between 1838 and 1852, the leading Chartist newspaper, the Northern Star, published over 1000 poems written by more than 350 poets - as the readership of the Northern Star numbered hundreds of thousands, these poems were amongst the most widely read of the Victorian era. This book offers a complete record of all the poems published. It asks a simple question: why did the writing and reading of poetry play such an important role in Chartism's struggle to secure fundamental democratic rights? It answers this question by analysing the interplay between politics, aesthetics and history in the aftermath of the Newport insurrection (1839), during the mass strikes of 1842 and the year of European revolutions (1848). Additionally, the book theorizes poetry's political agency and examines the critical history of Chartist poetry.
Introduction; 1. The Chartist imaginary: 'talking by turns of politics and poetry'; 2. Chartist poetry and literary history; 3. 'A jackass load of poetry': The Northern Star's poetry column 1838-52; 4. Insurrectionary sonnets: the ideological afterlife of the Newport uprising; 5. 'Merry England': memory and nostalgia in the year of the mass strike; 6. 'The future-hastening storm': Chartist poetry in 1848; 7. Constellating Chartist poetry: Gerald Massey, Walter Benjamin and the uses of messianism; Appendix A: three Chartist poems; Appendix B: details of poetry published in the poetry column of the Northern Star.
