The making of the English working-class poet. Historical perspectives of class, art, and culture in the shaping of five poets from Leeds: Geoffrey Hill, Jon Silkin, Tony Harrison, Ken Smith, and Jeffrey Wainwright

This study seeks to make a case for the existence of what could be considered a "Leeds school" of poetry by examining the many historical, social, political, and literary factors that have likely contributed to the poetry of Geoffrey Hill, Jon Silkin, Tony Harrison, Ken Smith, and Jeffrey Wainwright. It covers roughly a century and a half of literary, social, and political history. While it begins with an event which I contend touched off the literary "Northern Renaissance," it moves quickly to examine the historical evolution that led to the radical atmosphere of 1950s Leeds. During that time, the five poets in question began rising in prominence as challengers to the conservative poetry and politics of Oxbridge and The Movement. In reaching back to the middle of the nineteenth century, the study explores the roots of a possible "Leeds philosophy of art," the likely impetus for the "Northern Renaissance" to come. As early as the 1840s, the critic and philosopher John Ruskin was distinguishing between art and commodity, specifically addressing art's relationship to the health of society. Ruskin's support of the Leeds painter John Inchbold, whom he regarded as upholding the true principles of art, set into motion a growing interest in painting and literature in Leeds that would eventually evolve into a thriving community of artists there. In the twentieth century, this community would inspire the creation of the Gregory Fellowships at the University of Leeds which would enable John Silkin to move his literary magazine, Stand, to Leeds where he would become the first to publish the work of the poets in this study under a single masthead. The dissertation then continues to address in detail the work of these five poets in light of their cultural and historical inheritance, as well as their relationships with one another. While it cannot be said that these poets ever actively organized into a predetermined arrangement, or that they have ever considered themselves to be part of an authentic "school" or "movement," there nonetheless remain among them and in their work certain commonalities and unifying aspects.