Introduction: The Value of Institutional Poetry

Abstract

This special issue focuses on institution-based poetry in Britain and its empire. It explores the links between institutions and poetry and how institutions and institutional systems, while imposing their systems of rules, also encouraged the production of poetry. The articles examine how institutional poets questioned Britain’s systems of rule and its global hegemonic power. The introduction to the volume opens with the historiography of institutions – gradually viewed as social institutions rather than mere administrative entities – progressively giving pride of place to the study of individuals within the collective. Then the introduction considers how the subgenre of institutional poetics offers a valuable resource for an interdisciplinary and comparative approach to the study of institutions. Indeed, institutional poems lend themselves to literary analysis and are also sources of testimony for historians and sociologists about the experience of institutional life. Finally, it highlights some of the reasons for the preference given to this specific literary form among institutional users.