TY - CHAP
T1 - Lamenting the dead
T2 - the affective afterlife of poets' graves
AU - Gilchrist, Paul
N1 - This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge/CRC Press in Affective Architectures: More-Than-Representational Geographies of Heritage on 21/09/2021, available online: https://www.routledge.com/Affective-Architectures-More-Than-Representational-Geographies-of-Heritage/Micieli-Voutsinas-Person/p/book/9780367152116
PY - 2020/9/21
Y1 - 2020/9/21
N2 - Poets’ graves are important memorial spaces as well as sites of literary and heritage tourism. Yet, they are also spaces of emotional encounter and affective exchange with a long tradition of writers paying respect and performing rituals of homage, composition and recital – hoping to cement their own imaginative agency and burgeoning poetical identities with those of poetical forebears. This chapter explores these practices by drawing upon research into the early Victorian poetic community of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in the north-east of England. My ancestor, Robert Gilchrist (1797-1844), considered to be one of the finest and most prolific poets working in the town, was part of this vibrant community and this chapter analyses a series of laments to dead poets produced by Gilchrist and his contemporaries in ways that illuminate the complex temporalities and affective legacies of the poets’ grave. My account is interweaved with my own narrative of discovery, re-membering, and visiting, as I follow the footsteps of Gilchrist and search for material traces of my kin. The chapter details how the poets’ grave maps onto the present as I consider the multi-temporal and affective afterlife of the poets’ grave as a space of both public heritage and private meaning.
AB - Poets’ graves are important memorial spaces as well as sites of literary and heritage tourism. Yet, they are also spaces of emotional encounter and affective exchange with a long tradition of writers paying respect and performing rituals of homage, composition and recital – hoping to cement their own imaginative agency and burgeoning poetical identities with those of poetical forebears. This chapter explores these practices by drawing upon research into the early Victorian poetic community of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in the north-east of England. My ancestor, Robert Gilchrist (1797-1844), considered to be one of the finest and most prolific poets working in the town, was part of this vibrant community and this chapter analyses a series of laments to dead poets produced by Gilchrist and his contemporaries in ways that illuminate the complex temporalities and affective legacies of the poets’ grave. My account is interweaved with my own narrative of discovery, re-membering, and visiting, as I follow the footsteps of Gilchrist and search for material traces of my kin. The chapter details how the poets’ grave maps onto the present as I consider the multi-temporal and affective afterlife of the poets’ grave as a space of both public heritage and private meaning.
KW - heritage
KW - Affect
KW - Poetry
KW - death
KW - memory
UR - https://www.routledge.com/Affective-Architectures-More-Than-Representational-Geographies-of-Heritage/Micieli-Voutsinas-Person/p/book/9780367152116
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85092022278&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Chapter
SN - 9780367152116
T3 - Critical Studies in Heritage, Emotion and Affect
SP - 151
EP - 167
BT - Affective Architectures
A2 - Micieli-Voutsinas, Jacque
A2 - Person, Angela
CY - Abingdon
ER -
