| Readers of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literatures commonly refer to rural-themed literatures as "pastoral" and "georgic." Although these texts hardly resemble their classical predecessors, critics typically debate pastoral and georgic's relevance without considering that other kinds of writing might have emerged in their place. This dissertation argues for what I term a "rustic mode" of writing, used specifically in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century representations of country life and village culture. The chapters herein examine rustic figures in the landscape as well as the idea that specific kinds of voice, embodiment, community, and character arc are used to signify the use of the rustic mode. I conclude that a distinct rustic mode emerges from the sudden popularity of laboring-class poetry in the eighteenth century, and that it is set apart by its profusion of colloquy. Early participants in the rustic mode like Stephen Duck and James Thomson represented their subjects in realistic rather than idealized terms, emphasizing the sounds of rural life. Poets including Edward Chicken, Robert Burns, and John Clare used dialect strategically to define their rustic aesthetic. In the rural novels of George Eliot and Thomas Hardy, we find a rustic mode indebted not only to their Romantic forbears but also to the laboring-class poets before them. By examining the development of this mode in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, we are able to demonstrate Romanticism's pivotal role in connecting early laboring-class poetry to Victorian-era realism. |
