Thomas Hood and Nineteenth-Century Poetry: Work, Play and Politics

This is the first modern critical study of Thomas Hood, the popular and influential 19th century poet, editor, cartoonist, and voice of social protest. Acclaimed by Dickens, the Brownings, and the Rossettis, Hood's quirky, diverse output between 1820 and 1845 offers fascinating insights for Romanticists and Victorianists alike. Sara Lodge's book explores the relationship between Hood's playfulness, liberal politics, and contemporary cultural debate about labor and recreation, literary materiality, and urban consumption. Each chapter examines something distinctive of interdisciplinary interest, including: the early 19th century print culture into which Hood was born; the traditional, urban, and political ramifications of the grotesque art and literature aesthetic; the cultural politics of Hood's trademark puns; theatre, leisure, and the "labor question."