Patriot Opposition to Walpole: Politics, Poetry, and National Myth, 1725-1742

What did it mean to be a "Patriot" during the Walpole administration? This is the first full-length study of the so-called Patriot opposition to Walpole which reached its height during the clamor for war against Spain at the turn of the 1730s. Christine Gerrard examines the interrelationship between patriotism, politics, and poetry in the period 1724-1742, looking at the poetry and drama of such authors as James Thomson, Alexander Pope, and the young Samuel Johnson, who were all drawn to the heady idealism of the young Boy Patriots. Other authors discussed include Bolingbroke, Lyttleton, West, Mallet, and Hill, and Gerrard looks, too, at the literature, prints, architecture, and statuary of the 1730s.