Women's Poetry and Religion in Victorian England: Jewish Identity and Christian Culture

by Cynthia Scheinberg

Overview

Victorian women poets lived in a time when religion was a vital aspect of their identities. Cynthia Scheinberg examines Anglo-Jewish (Grace Aguilar and Amy Levy) and Christian (Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Rossetti) women poets, and argues that there are important connections between the discourses of nineteenth-century poetry, gender and religious identity. Broadly interdisciplinary, the book's methodology relates to studies in poetics, religious studies, feminist literary criticism, and little-known Anglo-Jewish primary sources.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521099837
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/18/2009
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture , #35
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)
Lexile:	1660L (what's this?)

About the Author

Cynthia Scheinberg is Associate Professor of English at Mills College in Oakland, California. She has published articles in Victorian Studies, Victorian Literature and Culture, and Victorian Poetry.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; 1. Introduction; 2. 'Sweet singers of Israel': gendered and Jewish otherness in Victorian poetics; 3. Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the 'Hebraic monster'; 4. Christina Rossetti and the Hebraic goblins of the Jewish scriptures; 5. 'Judaism rightly reverenced': Grace Aguilar's theological poetics; 6. Amy Levy and the accents of minor(ity) poetry; Notes.

Editorial Reviews

"This timely book offers refreshing new angles with which to explore women's poetry in the Victorian period, and it will be of great use to future scholars and students working on this field." Victorian Institute Journal

"[Scheinberg's] book will enrich the study of Victorian poetry, Anglo-Jewish literature, and women's religious identity." Victorian Studies

"...a scholarly but readable book on four women poets of Victorian England, two Jewish and two Christian." Mills Quarterly

"[T]his is an important study, sure to engage anyone interested in women poets, devotional writing, or Christian-Jewish relations in the 19th century. Recommended." Choice

"What Scheinberg offers in this committed feminist study is an admixture of exegesis, interpretation, and literary criticism... Scheinberg illustrates and exemplifies in detailed fashion the creativity and complexity of the four poets' theology and poetry." Nineteenth Century Studies

From the Publisher