Description

James Thomson: Essays for the Tercentenary is the first collection of essays devoted exclusively to the works of the eighteenth-century Scottish poet James Thomson. The volume is divided into two sections, the first addressing Thomson’s writings themselves, and the second the reception of his works after his death and their influence on later writers. The first section contains essays analysing the politics and aesthetics of Thomson’s major poems and also a reevaluation of Thomson as a heroic dramatist. The second section capitalises on the certainty felt by many in Thomson’s own century that the poet, especially through his most successful poem The Seasons, had won for himself an indelible fame. This volume provides a definitive reappraisal of his achievement for our own times. Introduction: Thomson’s ‘frame’ – Richard Terry Part 1: Works ‘O Sophonisba! Sophonisba o!’: Thomson the Tragedian – Brean S. Hammond ‘Can Pure Description Hold the Place of Sense?’: Thomson’s Landscape Poetry – W. B. Hutchings Thomson and Shaftesbury – Robert Inglesfield The Seasons and the Politics of Opposition – Glynis Ridley James Thomson and the Progress of the Progress Poem: From Liberty to The Castle of Indolence – Robin Dix Part 2: Posterity Thomson and the Druids – Richard Terry James Thomson and Eighteenth-Century Scottish Literary Identity – Gerard Carruthers Britannia’s Heart of Oak: Thomson, Garrick and the Language of Eighteenth-Century Patriotism – Tim Fulford Thomson and the 1790s – John Barrell and Harriet Guest ‘That is true fame’: A Few Words about Thomson’s Romantic Period Popularity – John Strachan Notes on Contributors Index