Robert Southey: History, Politics, Religion (Nineteenth-Century Major Lives and Letters) - Hardcover

"Important . . . Robert Southey is more archive than interpretation. But the accumulating detail on the Catholic question also makes a qualitative difference, showing how Southey the poet laureate grew from Southey the poet." - Studies in Romanticism

"The history, politics and religion of [Andrews'] title combine to produce a cogent narrative of Southey's engagement with contemporary debates about Catholic emancipation." - Romanticism

"The history, politics, and religion of his title combine to produce a cogent narrative of Southey's engagement with contemporary debates about Catholic emancipation." - Carol Bolton, Senior Lecturer in English, Loughborough University, UK

Robert Southey's preoccupation with the presumed danger of admitting Catholics to Parliament, following the Irish Act of Union, has always been an embarrassment to his admirers. Stuart Andrews, in Robert Southey, argues that the Poet Laureate's denunciation of global Catholicism is essential to understanding his life, works, and times. On this issue Southey was absolutely consistent-from his first visit to Lisbon in 1795 to his Colloquies published in 1829. Echoes of the debate have faded, but Southey's partisan rhetoric reflects its intensity and reveals much about the religious culture and concern for English identity in this stormy period