Description
Literature and Party Politics at the Accession of Queen Anne is the first detailed study of the final Stuart succession crisis. It demonstrates for the first time the centrality of debates about royal succession to the literature and political culture of the early eighteenth century. Using previously neglected, misunderstood, and newly discovered material, Joseph Hone shows that arguments about Anne's right to the throne were crucial to the construction of nascent party political identities. Literary texts were the principal vehicle through which contemporaries debated the new queen's legitimacy. This book sheds fresh light on canonical authors such as Daniel Defoe, Alexander Pope, and Joseph Addison by setting their writing alongside the work of lesser known but nonetheless important figures such as John Tutchin, William Pittis, Nahum Tate, John Dennis, Henry Sacheverell, Charles Leslie, and other anonymous and pseudonymous authors. Through close historical analysis, it shows how this new generation of poets, preachers, and pamphleteers transformed older models of succession writing by Milton, Dryden, and others, and imbued conventional genres such as panegyric and satire with their own distinctive poetics. By immersing the major authors in their milieu, and reconstructing the political and material contexts in which those authors wrote, Literature and Party Politics demonstrates the vitality of debates about royal succession in early eighteenth-century culture.
About the Author
Joseph Hone is the Lumley Research Fellow in English at Magdalene College, Cambridge. His research focuses on the intersections of literature and political culture during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Previously he taught at the University of Oxford and held the Katharine F. Pantzer Fellowship in Descriptive Bibliography at Harvard University. He has published widely on eighteenth-century literature.
Reviews
Succinct, shrewd ... an exemplary case study of a moment of dynastic instability in denial. * Jayne Lewis, Studies in English Literature *
an impressive debut by a promising young scholar, whose dogged research has uncovered primary documents never before discussed in modern scholarship, and whose engagement with the existing scholarship is serious and thorough...fresh, original, and persuasive * James A. Winn, Modern Philology *
Hone's attention to the political and cultural contexts of the year of Queen Anne's accession pays dividends * J. A. Downie, The Review of English Studies *
a subtly revisionist account of literary politics... grounded insistently and illuminatingly, in the political and cultural contexts of the period * Philip Connell, The Seventeenth Century *
scrupulously accurate, clearly argued, solidly supported and admirably even-handed * Juan Christian Pellicer, Journal for Eightenth-Century Studies *
well-researched, cogently organized, and lucidly written... essential reading * Melissa Shoenberger, Eighteenth-Century Studies *
Hone has a keen eye for both detail and constitutional macro-narratives... an impressive monograph * Ophelia Field, TheTimes Literary Supplement *
a densely argued and meticulously researched study which is in the best sense of the word 'revisionist' * Jeffrey Hopes, XVII-XVIII *
packs intellectual punch and erudite insights... a valuable study that deserves to be read widely by historians of all fields * Jurriaan M. van Santvoort, Journal of British Studies *
Not only does the book succeed in broadening our understanding of the literature and party politics of this underestimated period, it also has wider methodological implications for the field of literary studies more generally, as a renewed testimony to the value of meticulous historicist scholarship... Hone's first monograph establishes him, already, as one of the best critical voices in eighteenth-century scholarship * Robert Scott, The Year's Work in English Studies *
an exemplary case study of a moment of dynastic instability in denial * Jayne Lewis, Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 *
Excellently researched and finely written...makes a thoroughly convincing and informative case that the political moment of Queen Anne was anything but straightforward or inconsequential * Kirk Combe, Notes and Queries *
This short but dense monograph is an impressive debut by a promising young scholar, whose dogged research has uncovered primary documents never before discussed inmodern scholarship, and whose engagement with the existing scholarship is serious and thorough ... Hone has not only argued his case with spirit and tenacity; he has provided other scholars with much new material to ponder. * James A. Winn, Modern Philology *
Densely packed with the discussions of writers major and minor, Literature and Party Politics at the Accession of Queen Anne is well researched, cogently organized, and lucidly written. It will make essential reading for anyone interested in the cultural contexts of Anne's accession, and the relation between literature and politics in early eighteenth-century England." * Melissa Schoenberger, Eighteenth Century Studies *
Indeed the value of Hone's book depends heavily on its work of historical contextualisation, which overall I find scrupulously accurate, clearly argued, solidly supported, and admirably even-handed. * Juan Christian Pellicer, British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies *
This short but dense monograph is an impressive debut by a promising young scholar, whose dogged research had uncovered primary documents never before discussed in modern scholarship, and whose engagement with the existing scholarship is serious and thorough. * James A. Winn, Modern Philology *
It is a measure of Hone's scholarly and critical talents that, while it seems hard to imagine many eighteenth-century readers capable of extracting quite so much significance from all of the texts to which he turns his eye, his interpretive procedures always remain grounded, insistently and illuminatingly, in the political and cultural contexts of the period. * Philip Connell, The Seventeenth Century *
By offering such a detailed and informed account of literary and cultural events, he succeeds in demonstrating the potential value both to literary critics and historians of what might reasonably be called 'thick description'. * J. A. Downie, The Review of English Studies *
Hone has a keen eye for both detail and constitutional macro-narratives. * Ophelia Field, Times Literary Supplement *
Awards
Winner of Shortlisted for the University English Book Prize.
Book Information
ISBN 9780198814078
Author Joseph Hone
Format Hardback
Page Count 222
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 396g
Dimensions(mm) 223mm * 145mm * 20mm
About the Author
Joseph Hone is the Lumley Research Fellow in English at Magdalene College, Cambridge. His research focuses on the intersections of literature and political culture during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Previously he taught at the University of Oxford and held the Katharine F. Pantzer Fellowship in Descriptive Bibliography at Harvard University. He has published widely on eighteenth-century literature.
Reviews
Succinct, shrewd ... an exemplary case study of a moment of dynastic instability in denial. * Jayne Lewis, Studies in English Literature *
an impressive debut by a promising young scholar, whose dogged research has uncovered primary documents never before discussed in modern scholarship, and whose engagement with the existing scholarship is serious and thorough...fresh, original, and persuasive * James A. Winn, Modern Philology *
Hone's attention to the political and cultural contexts of the year of Queen Anne's accession pays dividends * J. A. Downie, The Review of English Studies *
a subtly revisionist account of literary politics... grounded insistently and illuminatingly, in the political and cultural contexts of the period * Philip Connell, The Seventeenth Century *
scrupulously accurate, clearly argued, solidly supported and admirably even-handed * Juan Christian Pellicer, Journal for Eightenth-Century Studies *
well-researched, cogently organized, and lucidly written... essential reading * Melissa Shoenberger, Eighteenth-Century Studies *
Hone has a keen eye for both detail and constitutional macro-narratives... an impressive monograph * Ophelia Field, TheTimes Literary Supplement *
a densely argued and meticulously researched study which is in the best sense of the word 'revisionist' * Jeffrey Hopes, XVII-XVIII *
packs intellectual punch and erudite insights... a valuable study that deserves to be read widely by historians of all fields * Jurriaan M. van Santvoort, Journal of British Studies *
Not only does the book succeed in broadening our understanding of the literature and party politics of this underestimated period, it also has wider methodological implications for the field of literary studies more generally, as a renewed testimony to the value of meticulous historicist scholarship... Hone's first monograph establishes him, already, as one of the best critical voices in eighteenth-century scholarship * Robert Scott, The Year's Work in English Studies *
an exemplary case study of a moment of dynastic instability in denial * Jayne Lewis, Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 *
Excellently researched and finely written...makes a thoroughly convincing and informative case that the political moment of Queen Anne was anything but straightforward or inconsequential * Kirk Combe, Notes and Queries *
This short but dense monograph is an impressive debut by a promising young scholar, whose dogged research has uncovered primary documents never before discussed inmodern scholarship, and whose engagement with the existing scholarship is serious and thorough ... Hone has not only argued his case with spirit and tenacity; he has provided other scholars with much new material to ponder. * James A. Winn, Modern Philology *
Densely packed with the discussions of writers major and minor, Literature and Party Politics at the Accession of Queen Anne is well researched, cogently organized, and lucidly written. It will make essential reading for anyone interested in the cultural contexts of Anne's accession, and the relation between literature and politics in early eighteenth-century England." * Melissa Schoenberger, Eighteenth Century Studies *
Indeed the value of Hone's book depends heavily on its work of historical contextualisation, which overall I find scrupulously accurate, clearly argued, solidly supported, and admirably even-handed. * Juan Christian Pellicer, British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies *
This short but dense monograph is an impressive debut by a promising young scholar, whose dogged research had uncovered primary documents never before discussed in modern scholarship, and whose engagement with the existing scholarship is serious and thorough. * James A. Winn, Modern Philology *
It is a measure of Hone's scholarly and critical talents that, while it seems hard to imagine many eighteenth-century readers capable of extracting quite so much significance from all of the texts to which he turns his eye, his interpretive procedures always remain grounded, insistently and illuminatingly, in the political and cultural contexts of the period. * Philip Connell, The Seventeenth Century *
By offering such a detailed and informed account of literary and cultural events, he succeeds in demonstrating the potential value both to literary critics and historians of what might reasonably be called 'thick description'. * J. A. Downie, The Review of English Studies *
Hone has a keen eye for both detail and constitutional macro-narratives. * Ophelia Field, Times Literary Supplement *
Awards
Winner of Shortlisted for the University English Book Prize.
Book Information
ISBN 9780198814078
Author Joseph Hone
Format Hardback
Page Count 222
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 396g
Dimensions(mm) 223mm * 145mm * 20mm
