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‘Rough Critical Winds’: Mis-selling English Pastoral in H. E. Bates’s Larkin Novels, 1958-1970’

Shears

‘Rough Critical Winds’: Mis-selling English Pastoral in H. E. Bates’s Larkin Novels, 1958-1970’ Thumbnail


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Abstract

The revival of interest in H. E. Bates has largely come without much attention being paid to his series of five novels featuring the Larkin family (1958-1970). The neglect is because of their populist and comic mode. Yet, study of the Larkin novels enables us to understand better the relationship between escapist tendencies and social relevance in twentieth-century pastoral, which is precisely the issue that has recently occupied critics of the regional novel. Pursuing the theme of mis-selling, this essay examines how the nostalgic effects that Bates constructs act as a commentary on the commodification of the pastoral that is made possible by new social realities and shifting geographies in post-war England. In the process the novels construct a pastoral resistant to rough critical winds that have dismissed them as sentimental or dishonourable. It argues that the novels test the limits of pastoral tenets, particularly distinctions between dimensions embedded in physical space, contributing to discussions about modernity’s nostalgic blindspots.

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 4, 2023
Publication Date Mar 21, 2023
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal English Studies: a journal of English language and literature
Print ISSN 0013-838X
Electronic ISSN 1744-4217
Publisher Routledge
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 104
Issue 5
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/0013838X.2023.2188806
Keywords H. E. Bates; Larkins; nostalgia; pastoral; commodification; economics
Publisher URL https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0013838X.2023.2188806#:~:text=The%20effect%20is%20that%2C%20if,to%20the%20ordinary%20terms%20of

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