‘Old delights’: the politics of pastoral nostalgia in Hutchinson’s manuscript verse

This article investigates the ways in which Lucy Hutchinson’s manuscript verse draws on pastoral and related modes frequently associated with royalist poetics. It situates her approach context of awareness tensions over private landholding during Civil War period, suggesting that both looks back nostalgically to an ideal elite landownership recognises challenges presented by popular democratic forces. In elegies, she redeploys tropes articulate pathos personal political bereavements whilst developing a meta-commentary own morally suspect attachment such poetic modes. Meanwhile, separate, poem, ‘All sorts men through various labours press’, explores manner conventions may elide or expose conflicts within ranks fellow Parliamentarians.