The Cambridge Companion to Victorian Poetry

by Joseph Bristow (Editor)

Overview

This Companion to Victorian Poetry provides an introduction to many of the pressing issues that absorbed the attention of poets from the 1830s to the 1890s. It introduces readers to a range of topics - including historicism, patriotism, prosody, and religious belief. The thirteen specially-commissioned chapters offer insights into the works of well-known figures such as Matthew Arnold, Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson, and the writings of women poets - like Michael Field, Amy Levy and Augusta Webster - whose contribution to Victorian culture has in more recent years been acknowledged by modern scholars. Revealing the breadth of the Victorians' experiments with poetic form, this Companion also discloses the extent to which their writings addressed the prominent intellectual and social questions of the day. The volume, which will be of interest to scholars and students alike, features a detailed chronology of the Victorian period and a comprehensive guide to further reading.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781139815901
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	10/26/2000
Series:	Cambridge Companions to Literature
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

Table of Contents

Notes on contributors; Preface; Acknowledgments; Abbreviations; Note on the texts; Chronology of publications and events; Chronology of poets; 1. Reforming Victorian poetry: poetics after 1832 Joseph Bristow; 2. 'The Lady of Shalott' and the critical fortunes of Victorian poetry Kathy Alexis Psomiades; 3. Experimental form in Victorian poetry E. Warwick Slinn; 4. The dramatic monologue Cornelia D. J. Pearsall; 5. Victorian meters Yopie Prins; 6. Victorian poetry and historicism Hilary Fraser; 7. Victorian poetry and science Daniel Brown; 8. Victorian poetry and religious diversity Cynthia Scheinberg; 9. The Victorian poetess Susan Brown; 10. The poetry of Victorian masculinities Thaïs E. Morgan; 11. Aesthetic and decadent poetry Karen Alkalay-Gut; 12. Victorian poetry and patriotism Tricia Lootens; 13. Voices of authority, voices of subversion: poetry in the late nineteenth century John Lucas; Glossary; Guide to further reading; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"[This book] offers a useful overview not only of the more familiar poets of the era, and their social, political, and economic context, but also of the critical heritage that has contributed to recent approaches to the subject... The editor has ensured that a variety of approaches is represented." Nineteenth Century Contexts

From the Publisher