Sailing the Good Ship Albion on the Way to Arcady. Is Peter Doherty a Romantic Poet? (PDF)

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2015 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,3, Humboldt-University of Berlin, language: English, abstract: Peter Doherty is a poet of today whose form of expression is music. Devoting himself to being a "popstar [as well as] performance poet" (Doherty, Books of Albion 9), he is subject to extensive media coverage as a celebrity (cf. 262), on the one hand meticulously vituperated by the tabloid press for his junkie rocker lifestyle (cf. 141; Hannaford 158), on the other hand glorified as "a folk hero" (168), a "legend" (B Libertines 0:09:12) who "has come to epitomise British rock 'n' roll [...] as both pariah and idol" (Hannaford 3), "a true romantic with a God-given gift for melody and verse" (Pomphrey qtd. in 258) and even further as "the last of the Rock Romantics" (5).

Peter Doherty certainly shares poetic doctrines with English Romantic poetry. Nonetheless, his public presentation and depiction as a Romantic, be it by himself or by the media, must also be taken into account. It is neither without significance nor reason that he is declared a Romantic on account of his philosophy (cf. Hannaford 229), lifestyle (cf. 231) and "self-destruction" (Anonymous Fan qtd. in 330), just as his own frequent referencing and citing of the Romantic poets (cf. From Albion to Shangri-La 178), the placement of these in relation to Doherty by others (cf. B Libertines 0:08:46-0:09:19) and overall his depiction as well as self-depiction in interviews, books and in his published diaries. The question that therefore evidently arises is: Subjected to a lyric analysis, can Peter Doherty be termed a Romantic poet?

Bearing in mind Pattison's words that "rock has endowed the conventions of Romanticism with popular life" (38) and Hannaford's that Doherty has "revived the notion of the rockstar as intellectual and as romantic troubadour" (227), this bachelor paper will aim to answer this question by firstly providing a definition of English Romantic poetry and a justification as to why popular rock music can be considered heir to Romantic poetry, then by examining the depiction and perception of Doherty as a Romantic public persona and distinguishing this from his poetic doctrines that resemble those of the Romantic poet, Albion and Arcady. These two themes will be examined and put into literary context, whereupon the second part of this paper will comprise the lyric analysis of four of Doherty's songs with regard to the literary attributes that define Romantic poetry. Finally, a conclusion of all that has been found will close the paper, delivering an answer to the stated question.