Prefigurations of Peace

British Poetry and Cosmopolitan Diplomacy in the Long Nineteenth Century

This project aims to uncover the existence of a hidden tradition, that of the poet-diplomat, in nineteenth-century English literature. This tradition allows us to see how British poets engaged with contemporary changes in diplomatic practice, and thus helps us move research into Victorian cosmopolitanism into a new direction. After the end of the Napoleonic wars, Europe witnessed a transformation in the conduct of international relations: to pre-empt new conflicts, the European powers developed a multilateral mechanism with which they hoped to address common problems. By means of this ‘cosmopolitan’ form of diplomacy, they aimed to put the interests of the world before that of the nation. The present project investigates how poets responded to this new mechanism and to the way in which it was put under pressure by specific geopolitical questions, from the creation of the German Confederation to the Occupation of Egypt. To better understand such poetic responses, the project focusses on a particular figure, that of the poet-diplomat: it revolves around diplomats who moonlighted as poets, or poets who moonlighted as diplomats, and who all occupy a relatively marginal position in English literary history.

Results

‘Songs without Sunrise: Irish Victorian Poetry and the Risorgimento.’ Languages, Cultures, Mediations 9.1 (2022). 57–80. DOI: 10.7358/lcm-2022-001-vand

‘From Error to Terror: The Romantic Inheritance in W. H. Auden’s “In Time of War”.’ Partial Answers 20.1 (2022). 151–174. DOI: 10.1353/pan.2022.0006

‘Waterloo Remembered: Thomas Moore and the Literary Reception of the Battle of Waterloo in the Nineteenth Century.’ Studies in Romanticism 56.4 (2017): 379–398. DOI: 10.1353/srm.2017.0017

Contact information

frederik.vandam@ru.nl