The Cockney Abroad: Leigh Hunt, the South, and “Blackwood’s Magazine” between Individual and Cultural Memory

Hunt’s narrative of his voyage to Italy is read against the grain of “Blackwood’s Magazine’s” political and literary criticism. In this light, Hunt’s narrative is rife with Cockneyisms: it showcases Hunt’s use of literature as a memory device and sees him mediating between cultural and individual memory, attempting to redraft the literary canon. Reading Hunt’s account in the light of Blackwood’s accusations calls into question the individual writer’s relationship to personal and collective recollection.