Poetry and politics in the aftermath of Peterloo: John Keats’s ode “To Autumn”

Abstract

“To Autumn” is not often associated with the Radical politics played out in and around Manchester in 1819. John Keats’s last published poem has been alternately praised for its artistic perfection or its cleverly-coded historical references, but this paper brings these apparently disparate readings together. Following Keats’s own conviction that “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” it will be argued that what the poem (linguistically) performs is a far-seeing and radical vision of the nature and function of work.

Keywords

• poetry
• politics
• pastoral
• Peterloo
• festive
• idleness