Overview

The tavern is widely acknowledged as central to the cultural and political life of Britain, yet widely misunderstood. Ian Newman provides the first sustained account of one of the primary institutions of the late eighteenth-century public sphere. The tavern was a venue not only for serious political and literary debate, but also for physical pleasure - the ludic, libidinal and gastronomic enjoyments with which late Georgian public life was inextricably entwined. This study focuses on the architecture of taverns and the people who frequented them, as well as the artistic forms - drinking songs, ballads, Anacreontic poetry, and toasting - with which the tavern was associated. By examining the culture of conviviality that emerged alongside other new forms of sociability in the second half of the eighteenth century, The Romantic Tavern argues for the importance of conviviality as a complex new form of sociability shaped by masculine political gathering and mixed company entertainments.

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9781108455923

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'At the opening of this fascinating study, Ian Newman assures us, with nimble irony, that 'I have had more fun researching and writing this book than accords with the usual image of academic pointy-headed severity'. Yet for all its self-deprecation, this is a learned account that sets about tracing such intricacies as 18th-century state surveillance, the tensions between feminised 'fashionable sociability' and 'the masculine commercialized politics of clubs and coffeehouses', and 'the pleasure of politics and the politics of pleasure, and how they gave shape to ideas about literature'.' Peter J. Smith, The Times Higher Education '... The Romantic Tavern is an important book that examines neglected literary traditions to shed light on canonical writings. It will stimulate literary critics and Romantic era specialists in general; the 'convivial public sphere' is a promising critical category.' Remy Duthille, The Review of English Studies

Author Information

Ian Newman is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, and a fellow of the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, where he specializes in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British and Irish literature. He has co-edited Charles Dibdin and Late Georgian Culture (2018) with Oskar Cox Jensen and David Kennerley, and his work has appeared in Studies in English Literature, European Romantic Review, Eighteenth-Century Studies, and Studies in Romanticism.

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