“The Romance of Real Life”: Richard Polwhele’s Representation of the Literary Culture and Language of Cornwall

Abstract

Richard Polwhele’s reputation, at least in literary studies, rests on his spectacularly vindictive assault on radical women writers, The Unsex’d Females (1798). He was equally forthcoming with his political views in the pages of the conservative press, and was a frequent contributor to, amongst others, the Anti-Jacobin Review. That said, while The Unsex’d Females might give a not unrepresentative indication of his poetic talents, it is less typical of his poetic subject matter. Over a prolific 60 years, Polwhele’s career encompassed a wide number of genres and preoccupations, but was most notably devoted to exploring the importance of what, in a lengthy poem of the same name, he termed the “influence of local attachment,” and to creating a legendary history of Cornwall in the manner of Walter Scott. Reactionary politics and indifferent poetry, pursued either in concert or separately, were only two of Polwhele’s interests. More significant (to him and certainly subsequently) were his works of antiquarian and county history: Historical Views of Devonshire (1793), The History of Devonshire (1793–1806), and The History of Cornwall (1803–1808). Collectively they are, according to Mark Brayshay, “magnificent studies” that “scarcely have an equal” in their time.¹