dc.contributor.author | Rennie, S | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2019-03-20T10:33:47Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2020-01-31 | |
dc.description.abstract | This article examines Lancashire commentary on the American Civil War during the Cotton Famine of 1861-65 through poetry which has recently been recovered from local newspapers. The complexity and variety of the often labouring-class subjectivities figured in the texts works to further disrupt the conventional historical view of a region united in moral and political sympathy with the Union cause, as exemplified by discourses surrounding Lincoln’s letter to the region in 1863. Much of this poetry displays an acute awareness of its place in the world. Labouring-class Lancashire people were forced by economic circumstances to confront the nature of a Victorian globalisation which had proved its instability, and many began to see themselves in terms of a global subjectivity for the first time. This poetic discourse may have been materially and culturally adjacent to journalistic comment on the crisis, but poetry’s imaginative freedom and ability to compress language and hence cultural meaning often represented an amplification, distortion, or even contradiction of implied editorial comment. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the sometimes febrile context of Lancashire commentary on the American Civil War and its domestic effects. Even when no particular resolution was offered as an option the ability of Lancashire poets to represent the voice of their fellow sufferers with some degree of authenticity served to reflect the ever more intimate relationship between the Victorian global and the local which the effects of the American war demonstrated in such stark terms. | en_GB |
dc.description.sponsorship | Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) | en_GB |
dc.identifier.citation | Vol. 25 (1), pp. 126–143 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.doi | 10.1093/jvcult/vcz024 | |
dc.identifier.grantnumber | AH/P008690/1 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10871/36578 | |
dc.language.iso | en | en_GB |
dc.publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) | en_GB |
dc.rights.embargoreason | Under embargo until 31 January 2022 in compliance with publisher policy | |
dc.rights | © 2020 Leeds Trinity University | |
dc.subject | Lancashire Cotton Famine | en_GB |
dc.subject | American Civil War | en_GB |
dc.subject | Labouring Class | en_GB |
dc.subject | Poetry | en_GB |
dc.subject | Newspaper | en_GB |
dc.subject | History | en_GB |
dc.title | 'This 'Merikay War': Poetic Responses in Lancashire to the American Civil War | en_GB |
dc.type | Article | en_GB |
dc.date.available | 2019-03-20T10:33:47Z | |
dc.identifier.issn | 1750-0133 | |
dc.description | This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Oxford University Press via the DOI in this record | en_GB |
dc.identifier.journal | Journal of Victorian Culture | en_GB |
dc.rights.uri | http://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved | en_GB |
dcterms.dateAccepted | 2019-01-29 | |
exeter.funder | ::Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) | en_GB |
rioxxterms.version | AM | en_GB |
rioxxterms.licenseref.startdate | 2019-01-29 | |
rioxxterms.type | Journal Article/Review | en_GB |
refterms.dateFCD | 2019-03-20T09:51:28Z | |
refterms.versionFCD | AM | |
refterms.panel | D | en_GB |