Two hundred years after the massacre of peaceful protestors who had gathered in St Peter's Field, Manchester, to hear 'Orator' Henry Hunt speak for Parliamentary Reform, this volume brings together scholars of the Romantic Era to assess the implications of such state violence in England, Scotland, Ireland and North America. Chapters explore how attitudes toward violence and the claims of 'the people' to participate in government were reflected and revised in the works of figures such as P. B. Shelley, John Keats, Walter Scott, Sydney Owenson, John Cahuac and J.M.W. Turner. Their analyses provi ... More

Two hundred years after the massacre of peaceful protestors who had gathered in St Peter's Field, Manchester, to hear 'Orator' Henry Hunt speak for Parliamentary Reform, this volume brings together scholars of the Romantic Era to assess the implications of such state violence in England, Scotland, Ireland and North America. Chapters explore how attitudes toward violence and the claims of 'the people' to participate in government were reflected and revised in the works of figures such as P. B. Shelley, John Keats, Walter Scott, Sydney Owenson, John Cahuac and J.M.W. Turner. Their analyses provide fresh insights into cultural engagement as a means of resisting oppression and as a sign of the resilience of humanity in facing threats and force. On the whole, the book advances the hypothesis that 'Peterloo', as the event was termed to evoke the British military victory at Waterloo, was most of all a conflict over the perceived and aspirational identities of the participants and observers and that the conflict manifested the identity of 'the people' as claimants on government. Recognizing popular claim-making was crucial for the passage of Reform. Though Peterloo resulted in an immediate backlash of repression, it contributed in the longer term to the change in attitude enabling Reform. The book concludes that state violence ultimately proved ineffective against popular participation, though it also uncovers the ways in which repressive measures function as a subtle and hidden kind of violence that discourages civic activism and continues to call forth cultural resistance.