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The Counter-Hegemonic Virtues of Popular Culture in Eighteenth-Century England

The Counter-Hegemonic Virtues of Popular Culture in Eighteenth-Century England Abstract The purpose of this article is to re-examine popular culture in early-modern England by focusing on the oral/illiterate-written/literate and popular culture-high culture dyads. I aim to question why these interrelated socio-cultural categories have not been properly reconciled by the writers of the time. Moreover, my purpose is to focus on antiquarianism as a valid method whereby the delineation between the above-mentioned dichotomies turns into a subtle relationship in which both terms become complementary. I shall focus on two important antiquarian texts - Henry Bourne’s Antiquitates Vulgares (1725) and John Brand’s Observations on Popular Antiquities (1777) - by considering issues of religion and national identity, in an attempt to show that popular culture made known its counter-hegemonic virtues which, though permanently negotiated, were never rejected by the polite. Ultimately, the unstable relationship between the high and the low will be seen as suggestive of the porous boundaries between the two, indicating, at the same time, popular culture’s participatory role in rethinking cultural identity in Enlightenment England. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png American, British and Canadian Studies Journal de Gruyter

The Counter-Hegemonic Virtues of Popular Culture in Eighteenth-Century England

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References (4)

Publisher
de Gruyter
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 by the
ISSN
1841-964X
eISSN
1841-964X
DOI
10.1515/abcsj-2015-0005
Publisher site
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Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this article is to re-examine popular culture in early-modern England by focusing on the oral/illiterate-written/literate and popular culture-high culture dyads. I aim to question why these interrelated socio-cultural categories have not been properly reconciled by the writers of the time. Moreover, my purpose is to focus on antiquarianism as a valid method whereby the delineation between the above-mentioned dichotomies turns into a subtle relationship in which both terms become complementary. I shall focus on two important antiquarian texts - Henry Bourne’s Antiquitates Vulgares (1725) and John Brand’s Observations on Popular Antiquities (1777) - by considering issues of religion and national identity, in an attempt to show that popular culture made known its counter-hegemonic virtues which, though permanently negotiated, were never rejected by the polite. Ultimately, the unstable relationship between the high and the low will be seen as suggestive of the porous boundaries between the two, indicating, at the same time, popular culture’s participatory role in rethinking cultural identity in Enlightenment England.

Journal

American, British and Canadian Studies Journal – de Gruyter

Published: Dec 1, 2015

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