Die Magd

[Jane]

"Towards a Working Class Romanticism: The Aesthetics of the Luddites"

http://www.rc.umd.edu/features/conferences/archive/6c.html



Changes in the Romantic canon, especially the (re)discovery of several
women writers, have added bulk and variety to the body of literature
available for reading and teaching, without, however, reconsidering the
class orientation of the canon itself. Prior to and at the early stages
of the expansion of Romanticism, books such as Martha Vicinus's The
Industrial Muse and Donna Landry's The Muses of Resistance pointed
readers toward authors and texts that might challenge an established
Romantic aesthetic. Landry's book, in particular, gets its share of
praise from scholars, but even most
of the scholars engaged in the creation of the new anthologies maintain
a leisure-class orientation and its accompanying aesthetic in selecting
texts for inclusion. The new Romantic canon might include Charlotte
Smith, Joanna Baillie, Anna Laetitia Barbauld, and Felicia Hemans, but
it includes them on the basis of an aesthetic that suggests their
influences upon established male Romantics, or their priority in
engaging a Romantic dialogue of political interest, or their employment
of a (highly classed)
sentimental gaze upon the plight of the poor. The aesthetic itself has
not changed (as one participant at the "Scenes of Writing" Conference
said, "Doggerel is doggerel") despite the new availability of texts that
might point the way toward a further reconsideration of the aesthetic
basis of canon formation. 

In this paper I propose that an initial step toward reconsidering the
classed aesthetic underlying the current Romantic canon might be to
outline the poetics of a community of working-class authors,
specifically the Luddites.

The Lexus and the Milkmaid

http://www.sri.bbsrc.ac.uk/news/Winter98/VMS.htm


http://www.ucsc.edu/currents/01-02/02-04/milk.html

"Because it represents purity and the goodness of nature, milk has been
a lightning rod for social  reformers for more than 150 years," she
said.  As ironic as it seems to compare today's activists to the leaders
of the Temperance movement, DuPuis concludes that both movements reflect
the unique status of milk. "Using milk as the focal point of a campaign
against genetic engineering hits people  on a deeper level than would a
campaign about soybeans," she said.


Why milkmaids? They've been the object and subject of the Arts for a
quite some time now. Now the sciences. 

 To me, the entire chapter is dull, men walking back and forth in fields
trying to true an imperfect sphere and stretch a chain. What utter
nonsense. The milkmaids might be interesting if only they would do
something, I mean they do put snails in the milk and warm it up, but
mostly they are but fairy tale ladies bound to the fields singing soft
mermaid's songs for sailors shipping out. Mason is the Captain of this
ship navigating its way arduously across the prairie and through the
trees. And he has been dismasted body, soul, mind. Can not even a
milkmaid 
in paradise in spring elevate his mood? Is it only girls at the end of
the world, kids (little goats) that make this good man hard? 

What's the O'Conner tale with the bible salesman and the girl with the
wooden leg? 
Moby something? No, that's not it. 


Oh milkyway
the heat of Harlem
can not cool your brightness shining
on an Indian summer's day in April