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.

This Companion brings together specially commissioned essays by distinguished international scholars that reflect both the diversity of Victorian poetry and the variety of critical approaches that illuminate it. Approaches Victorian poetry by way of genre, production and cultural context, rather than through individual poets or poems Demonstrates how a particular poet or poem emerges from a number of overlapping cultural contexts. Explores the relationships between work by different poets Recalls attention to a considerable body of poetry that has fallen into neglect Essays are informed by recent developments in textual and cultural theory Considers Victorian women poets in every chapter

Inclusive, cutting-edge essay collection by leading scholars on Victorian women poets and their diverse poetic forms and identities.

In a work that is uniquely comprehensive and theoretically astute, Isobel Armstrong rescues Victorian poetry from its longstanding sepia image as `a moralised form of romantic verse', and unearths its often subversive critique of nineteenth-century culture and politics.

Reading Victorian Poetry “Richard Cronin’s exceptionally fine book carries out just what its title promises – reading. The pleasure of his adroit, meticulously imaginative insights into verbal and metrical effects is constant … One of the best general readings of Victorian poetry in the last ten years.” Victorian Studies “Reading Victorian Poetry will make an excellent introduction to Victorian poetry and gives a good account of a number of key issues.” English Studies Reading Victorian Poetry offers close readings of poems from the Victorian era, carefully selected by the author to reflect the breadth and diversity of nineteenth-century poetry. Richard Cronin’s outstanding consideration of a wide range of poets reflects the unusual diversity of Victorian poetry, which includes, amongst others, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti, D.G. Rossetti, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. The book investigates key concerns of the era in which poetry was ousted by the novel from the culturally central position that it had enjoyed for centuries. The result is an important and exciting contribution to the understanding of nineteenth-century poetry, and a crucial resource for anyone interested in Victorian literature.

A NEW COMPANION TO VICTORIAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE The Victorian period was a time of rapid cultural change, which resulted in a huge and varied literary output. A New Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture offers experienced guidance to the literature of nineteenth-century Britain and its social and historical context. This revised and expanded edition comprises contributions from over 30 leading scholars who, approaching the Victorian epoch from different positions and traditions, delve into the unruly complexities of the Victorian imagination. Divided into five parts, this new Companion surveys seven decades of history before examining the key phases in a Victorian life, the leading professions and walks of life, the major literary genres, the way Victorians defined their persons, homes, and national identity, and how recent “neo-Victorian” developments in contemporary culture reconfigure the sense we make of the past today. Important topics such as sexuality, denominational faith, social class, and global empire inform each chapter’s approach. Each chapter provides a comprehensive bibliography of established and emerging scholarship.

Thirty leading Victorianists from around the world collaborate here in a multidimensional analysis of the breadth and sweep of modern Britain's longest, unruliest literary epoch.

Explores how Victorian poetry and translation dynamically influenced one another in an age of empire.

The Routledge Companion to Victorian Literature offers 45 chapters by leading international scholars working with the most dynamic and influential political, cultural, and theoretical issues addressing Victorian literature today. Scholars and students will find this collection both useful and inspiring. Rigorously engaged with current scholarship that is both historically sensitive and theoretically informed, the Routledge Companion places the genres of the novel, poetry, and drama and issues of gender, social class, and race in conversation with subjects like ecology, colonialism, the Gothic, digital humanities, sexualities, disability, material culture, and animal studies. This guide is aimed at scholars who want to know the most significant critical approaches in Victorian studies, often written by the very scholars who helped found those fields. It addresses major theoretical movements such as narrative theory, formalism, historicism, and economic theory, as well as Victorian models of subjects such as anthropology, cognitive science, and religion. With its lists of key works, rich cross-referencing, extensive bibliographies, and explications of scholarly trajectories, the book is a crucial resource for graduate students and advanced undergraduates, while offering invaluable support to more seasoned scholars.

An overview of British poetry from 1830 to 1901, with a glossary of literary terms and guide to further reading.