Publications and Research
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Fall 2020
Abstract
Elizabeth Kent has been considered a rather minor figure in the Leigh Hunt circle. However, this examination of her previously unknown children’s tales illuminates how Kent’s generic crossings establish a common emphasis on observation in the realms of botany, pedagogy, and poetry while suggesting that what happens beyond the observable world might be equally generative. Taken as a whole, Kent’s work constitutes a previously unacknowledged challenge to the Cockney School’s almost fetishistic attachment to the social. The identification of New Tales brings into focus Kent’s efforts to systematize friendship through her writing and clarifies her ambiguous response to Cockney amiability.
Included in
Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons
Comments
Copyright © 2020 Trustees of Boston University. This article first appeared in Studies in Romanticism, Volume 59, Issue 3, Fall, 2020, pages 329-349. Published by the Johns Hopkins University Press.