1-Poetry-in-society.

pdf

PaulaMaseda

Introducción a los Estudios Literarios en Lengua Inglesa

1º Grado en Estudios Ingleses

Facultad de Filosofía y Letras

Universidad de Oviedo

Reservados todos los derechos.

No se permite la explotación económica ni la transformación de esta obra. Queda permitida la impresión en su totalidad.
 POETRY IN SOCIETY: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Source: “Public poetry” (Chapter 8, pp. 143-155, in Studying Poetry, by Stephen Matterson &
Darryl Jones. London: Hodder Education, 2009).

No se permite la explotación económica ni la transformación de esta obra. Queda permitida la impresión en su totalidad.
Poems are historical artefacts. They are all produced at specific historical moments and their
meanings are in many ways produced by these moments.

 Oral poetry
o No single, recognised “author”.
o It articulated communal experiences, desires, histories, narratives…
o It had a public function: Kings, courts or noblemen employed official poets (bards).

 Pre-Romantic Poetry
o Patronage was crucial.
o Many poets were “social insiders” (politicians, courtiers, civil servants…): Chaucer,
Spenser, Milton.
o Examples of works written under patronage:

Reservados todos los derechos.

 Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Book of the Duchess (1369-1372)
 Edmund Spenser’s The Fairie Queene (1590-1596)
 William Shakespeare’s history plays

 The Poet Laureateship (from 1668 onwards)

o Royal patronage made official in 1668.
o First incumbent: John Dryden (1631-1700).
o Function of the Poet Laureate: to write commemoratively on national events, and
particularly on the monarchy.
o Current criticism of the figure as an insincere poet, one that lacks integrity.
o Carol Ann Duffy (1955) is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is Professor of
Contemporary Poetry at the Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed
Britain’s poet laureate in May 2009. She is the first woman, the first Scot, and the
first openly bisexual person to hold the position, as well as the first laureate to be
chosen in the 21st century.

 Romanticism
o Background:
 Disappearance of patronage
 Industrial revolution and utilitarianism
o Template for the figure of the poet:
 Socially and geographically set apart
 Symbolically associated with wild, sublime landscapes, authenticity, nature
(over culture), the supernatural or folkloric (over the social)
 Ideologically representative of the dispossessed
 A symbol of radical individualism
o Example: William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
 Desire to escape from the world of politics
 Retreat into natural isolation

 The 20th century

o In the 20th century, despite the legacy of Romanticism, poetry has continued to carry
a public tradition.
o It has articulated national or nationalistic thinking, particularly amongst
marginalized, colonized or otherwise disenfranchised peoples.
o Examples:
 W.B. Yeats (1865-1939): “Easter 1916”
 Linton Kwesi Johnson (1952): “Wat about di workin claas?” (1991)

a64b0469ff35958ef4ab887a898bd50bdfbbe91a-1604121