Battles for representation: the events of 1819-20

In this paper I will consider poetic responses to the Peterloo massacre. I begin by examining the poems of Samuel Bamford, the only known poet at the massacre, and his attempts to tone down the more inflammatory aspects of his first poems on Peterloo for his new Chartist audience of the 1840’s. I will then move on to William Hone and his battle to control the narratives of contemporary texts that have been produced by the literary elite and the ruling class, and in doing so to create his own public sphere. I end by examining Shelley’s Peterloo poems and his assimilation of current radical discourse and poetic style.