The Poetry of Chartism: Aesthetics, Politics, History

Between 1838 and 1852, the leading Chartist newspaper, the Northern Star, published over 1,000 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. Why did the writing and reading of poetry play such an important role in Chartism's struggle to secure fundamental democratic rights? This first ever full-length study of the Northern Star's poetry column analyses 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). Mike Sanders transforms our understanding of Chartism and its place in the history of Victorian literature and ideas.