Study Overview

This study discusses the representation of class in poetry in English from Britain and Ireland between the fourteenth and twenty-first centuries, and the effect of class on the production, dissemination, and reception of that poetry.

Factors Influencing Poetry

It looks at the factors which enable and obstruct the production of poetry, such as literacy, education, patronage, prejudice, print, and the various alleged revivals of poetry in Britain, and the relationship between class and poetic form.

Scope and Approach

Whilst this is a survey that cannot be comprehensive, it offers a number of case-studies of poets and poems from each period considered.