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The Victorian Novel, Service Work, and the Nineteenth-Century Economy (Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture)
by Joshua GoochThis book offers a much-needed study of the Victorian novel's role in representing and shaping the service sector's emergence. Arguing that prior accounts of the novel's relation to the rise of finance have missed the emergence of a wider service sector, it traces the effects of service work's many forms and class positions in the Victorian novel.
The Victorian Novelist: Social Problems and Change (Routledge Library Editions: The Nineteenth-Century Novel #14)
by Kate FlintFirst published in 1987. Many Victorian novels that considered social problems made extensive use of contemporary source material for their descriptions. This book aims to provide a greater acquaintance with this non-literary material — illustrating and exemplifying issues that the authors treated imaginatively. The material is divided into parts dealing with: the industrial north of England, London and the agricultural poor. Extracts from writings that bear directly on the fiction of writers like Dickens and Gaskell are featured, as are Government Blue Books and newspaper reports and articles. This volume also contains articles by Dickens and others, from his magazine, Household Words.
Victorian Pain
by Rachel AblowThe nineteenth century introduced developments in science and medicine that made the eradication of pain conceivable for the first time. This new understanding of pain brought with it a complex set of moral and philosophical dilemmas. If pain serves no obvious purpose, how do we reconcile its existence with a well-ordered universe? Examining how writers of the day engaged with such questions, Victorian Pain offers a compelling new literary and philosophical history of modern pain.Rachel Ablow provides close readings of novelists Charlotte Brontë and Thomas Hardy and political and natural philosophers John Stuart Mill, Harriet Martineau, and Charles Darwin, as well as a variety of medical, scientific, and popular writers of the Victorian age. She explores how discussions of pain served as investigations into the status of persons and the nature and parameters of social life. No longer conceivable as divine trial or punishment, pain in the nineteenth century came to seem instead like a historical accident suggesting little or nothing about the individual who suffers.A landmark study of Victorian literature and the history of pain, Victorian Pain shows how these writers came to see pain as a social as well as a personal problem. Rather than simply self-evident to the sufferer and unknowable to anyone else, pain was also understood to be produced between persons—and even, perhaps, by the fictions they read.
Victorian People and Ideas
by Richard Daniel AltickThis book is rather like one of those "Music Minus One" records of a concerto, in which the orchestral accompaniment is present but the solo instrument lacking. The different voices of Victorian social and intellectual history here provide the background, that is to say, the thematic material which in a fully realized concerto is developed by the solo instrument. The unheard soloist-- the real center of interest-- is, of course, Victorian literature itself. The analogy is not quite perfect: literary history does figure more or less prominently in the opening chapter. But thereafter literature is present only in the form of frequent passing allusions, suggestions from the orchestra which, we are to understand, are taken up and elaborated by the soloist. The chapters that follow are designed, then, to supply the accompaniment by which Victorian literature can be made more intelligible and pertinent to a reader in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The accurate understanding of any era's literature depends to a greater or less extent on a grasp of its historical context, but the danger of misreading and of anachronistic criticism increases when one deals with literature so intimately connected with contemporary life as was that of the Victorians.
The Victorian Period: The Intellectual and Cultural Context of English Literature, 1830 - 1890 (Longman Literature In English Series)
by Robin GilmourThis is a thought-provoking synthesis of the Victorian period, focusing on the themes of science, religion, politics and art. It examines the developments which radically changed the intellectual climate and illustrates how their manifestations permeated Victorian literature.The author begins by establishing the social and institutional framework in which intellectual and cultural life developed. Special attention is paid to the reform agenda of new groups which challenged traditional society, and this perspective informs Gilmour's discussion throughout the book. He assesses Victorian religion, science and politics in their own terms and in relation to the larger cultural politics of the middle-class challenge to traditionalism. Familiar topics, such as the Oxford Movement and Darwinism, are seen afresh, and those once neglected areas which are now increasingly important to modern scholars are brought into clear focus, such as Victorian agnosticism, the politics of gender, 'Englishness', and photography. The most innovative feature of this compelling study is the prominence given to the contemporary preoccupation with time. The Victorians' time-hauntedness emerges as the defining feature of their civilisation - the remote time of geology and evolution, the public time of history, the private time of autobiography.
Victorian Pets and Poetry (Routledge Studies in Nineteenth Century Literature)
by Kevin A. MorrisonSome of the most celebrated poets of the Victorian era wrote—at times movingly or humorously—about their pets. They did so in a wider literary context, for poetry about pets was ubiquitous in the period. Animal welfare organizations utilized poems about canine and feline suffering in institutional publications to call attention to various abuses. Elegies and epitaphs over the loss of a beloved cat, songbird, or dog were printed on funeral cards, tombstones, and appeared in mass-produced poetry collections as well as those intended for an intimate circle of friends. Yet poems about pets, as well as attendant issues such as breeding and overpopulation, have not received the kind of critical analysis devoted to fictional works and short stories. With an introduction, afterword, and eight essays offering new perspectives on significant as well as lesser known poems, Victorian Pets and Poetry remedies this omission.
Victorian Photography, Literature, and the Invention of Modern Memory: Already the Past (Photography, History: History, Photography)
by Jennifer Green-LewisInvented during a period of anxiety about the ability of human memory to cope with the demands of expanding knowledge, photography not only changed the way the Victorians saw the world, but also provided them with a new sense of connection with the past and a developing language with which to describe it. Analysing a broad range of texts by inventors, cultural critics, photographers, and novelists, Victorian Photography, Literature, and the Invention of Modern Memory: Already the Past argues that Victorian photography ultimately defined the concept of memory for generations to come –including our own. In addition to being invaluable for scholars working within the emerging field of research at the intersection of photographic and literary studies, this book will also be of interest to students of Victorian and modernist literature, visual culture and intellectual history.
The Victorian Poet: Poetics and Persona (Routledge Revivals)
by Joseph BristowThe practice of poetry in the Victorian period was characterised by an extreme diversity of styles, preoccupations and subject-matter. This anthology attempts to draw out some of the main focuses of interest in the Victorian poet. No Victorian poet produced an overall theory of poetry, yet all accepted it as a natural vehicle of expression, and for some subjects, in particular sexuality, the only literary mode. Indeed, the sexual question was made even more acute by the sudden phenomenon of the ‘poetess’, and the relation of poetry to gender raised interesting new critical questions. At the same time, the cultural role of the poet came under increasing debate: Victorian poetry was the first contemporary poetry to be studied. This selection of central texts illustrates these pressures on the Victorian practice of poetry, and the introductory remarks suggest ways in which theory can be related to the understanding key poems themselves.
Victorian Poetry: Poetry, Poetics and Politics (Routledge Critical History Of Victorian Poetry Ser.)
by Isobel ArmstrongIn Victorian Poetry: Poetry, Poetics and Politics, Isobel Armstrong rescued Victorian poetry from its longstanding sepia image as ‘a moralised form of romantic verse' and unearthed its often subversive critique of nineteenth-century culture and politics. In this uniquely comprehensive and theoretically astute new edition, Armstrong provides an entirely new preface that notes the key advances in the criticism of Victorian poetry since her classic work was first published in 1993. A new chapter on the alternative fin de siècle sees Armstrong discuss Michael Field, Rudyard Kipling, Alice Meynell and a selection of Hardy lyrics. The extensive bibliography acts as a key resource for students and scholars alike.
Victorian Poetry and Modern Life: The Unpoetical Age (Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture)
by Natasha MooreFaced with the chaos and banality of modern, everyday life, a number of Victorian poets sought innovative ways of writing about the unpoetic present in their verse. Their varied efforts are recognisably akin, not least in their development of mixed verse-forms that fused novel and epic to create something equal to the miscellaneousness of the age.
Victorian Poetry Now: Poets, Poems and Poetics (Wiley Blackwell Guides to Literature #25)
by Valentine CunninghamThis book is the definitive guide to Victorian poetry, which its author approaches in the light of modern critical concerns and contemporary contexts. Valentine Cunningham exhibits encyclopedic knowledge of the poetry produced in this period and offers dazzling close readings of a number of well-known poems Draws on the work of major Victorian poets and their works as well as many of the less well-known poets and poems Reads poems and poets in the light of both Victorian and modern critical concerns Places poetry in its personal, aesthetic, historical, and ideological context Organized in terms of the Victorian anxieties of self, body, and melancholy Argues that rhyming/repetition is the major formal feature of Victorian poetry Highlights the Victorian obsession with small subjects in small poems Shows how Victorian poetry attempts to engage with the modern subject and how its modernity segues into modernism and postmodernism
Victorian Poets: A Critical Reader (Blackwell Critical Reader #9)
by Valentine CunninghamVictorian Poets: A Critical Reader features a collection of critical essays focusing on various aspects of Victorian-era poetry from the 1830s to the 1890s. Presents key criticism on Victorian poetry Features contributions from a variety of scholars in the field Illustrates the full range of critical approaches to the Victorian poets, including attention to texts, words, forms, modes, and sub-genres Offers fresh reinterpretations, many driven by contemporary ideological interests, including gender questions, selfhood, and body issues
Victorian Poets and the Changing Bible (Victorian Literature and Culture Series)
by Charles LaporteVictorian Poets and the Changing Bible charts the impact of post-Enlightenment biblical criticism on English literary culture. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw a widespread reevaluation of biblical inspiration, in which the Bible's poetic nature came to be seen as an integral part of its religious significance. Understandably, then, many poets who followed this interpretative revolution--including Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning--came to reconceive their highest vocational ambitions: if the Bible is essentially poetry, then modern poetry might perform a cultural role akin to that of scripture. This context equally illuminates the aims and achievements of famous Victorian unbelievers such as Arthur Hugh Clough and George Eliot, who also responded enthusiastically to the poetic ideal of an inspired text.Building upon a recent and ongoing reevaluation of religion as a vital aspect of Victorian culture, Charles LaPorte shows the enduring relevance of religion in a period usually associated with its decline. In doing so, he helps to delineate the midcentury shape of a literary dynamic that is generally better understood in Romantic poetry of the earlier part of the century. The poets he examines all wrestled with modern findings about the Bible's fortuitous historical composition, yet they owed much of their extraordinary literary success to their ability to capitalize upon the progress of avant-garde biblical interpretation.This book's revisionary and provocative thesis speaks not only to the course of English poetics but also to the logic of nineteenth-century literary hierarchies and to the continuing evolution of religion in the modern era. Victorian Literature and Culture Series
Victorian Publishing: The Economics of Book Production for a Mass Market 1836-1916 (The Nineteenth Century Series)
by Alexis WeedonDrawing on research into the book-production records of twelve publishers-including George Bell & Son, Richard Bentley, William Blackwood, Chatto & Windus, Oliver & Boyd, Macmillan, and the book printers William Clowes and T&A Constable - taken at ten-year intervals from 1836 to 1916, this book interprets broad trends in the growth and diversity of book publishing in Victorian Britain. Chapters explore the significance of the export trade to the colonies and the rising importance of towns outside London as centres of publishing; the influence of technological change in increasing the variety and quantity of books; and how the business practice of literary publishing developed to expand the market for British and American authors. The book takes examples from the purchase and sale of popular fiction by Ouida, Mrs. Wood, Mrs. Ewing, and canonical authors such as George Eliot, Wilkie Collins, and Mark Twain. Consideration of the unique demands of the educational market complements the focus on fiction, as readers, arithmetic books, music, geography, science textbooks, and Greek and Latin classics became a staple for an increasing number of publishing houses wishing to spread the risk of novel publication.
The Victorian Romantics 1850-70: The Early Work of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris, Burne-Jones, Swinburne, Simeon Solomon and their Associates (Routledge Library Editions: Romanticism #26)
by T. Earle WelbyFirst published in 1929. This title explores the early work of five Victorian Romantics; Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris, Edward Burne Jones, Algernon Charles Swinburne, and Simeon Solomon, and exhibits them at or soon after the moment of entry into the movement. This title will be of interest to students of literature and art history.
Victorian Sappho
by Yopie PrinsWhat is Sappho, except a name? Although the Greek archaic lyrics attributed to Sappho of Lesbos survive only in fragments, she has been invoked for many centuries as the original woman poet, singing at the origins of a Western lyric tradition. Victorian Sappho traces the emergence of this idealized feminine figure through reconstructions of the Sapphic fragments in late-nineteenth-century England. Yopie Prins argues that the Victorian period is a critical turning point in the history of Sappho's reception; what we now call "Sappho" is in many ways an artifact of Victorian poetics. Prins reads the Sapphic fragments in Greek alongside various English translations and imitations, considering a wide range of Victorian poets--male and female, famous and forgotten--who signed their poetry in the name of Sappho. By "declining" the name in each chapter, the book presents a theoretical argument about the Sapphic signature, as well as a historical account of its implications in Victorian England. Prins explores the relations between classical philology and Victorian poetics, the tropes of lesbian writing, the aesthetics of meter, and nineteenth-century personifications of the "Poetess." as current scholarship on Sappho and her afterlife. Offering a history and theory of lyric as a gendered literary form, the book is an exciting and original contribution to Victorian studies, classical studies, comparative literature, and women's studies.
Victorian Science and Literature, Part I Vol 1
by Jonathan Smith Bernard Lightman Gowan Dawson James Paradis Suzy Anger David Amigoni Richard England James Elwick Piers J Hale Jude V NixonThis eight-volume, reset edition in two parts collects rare primary sources on Victorian science, literature and culture. The sources cover both scientific writing that has an aesthetic component – what might be called 'the literature of science' – and more overtly literary texts that deal with scientific matters.
Victorian Science and Literature, Part I Vol 2
by Jonathan Smith Bernard Lightman Gowan Dawson James Paradis Suzy Anger David Amigoni Richard England James Elwick Piers J Hale Jude V NixonThis eight-volume, reset edition in two parts collects rare primary sources on Victorian science, literature and culture. The sources cover both scientific writing that has an aesthetic component – what might be called 'the literature of science' – and more overtly literary texts that deal with scientific matters.
Victorian Science and Literature, Part I Vol 3
by Gowan Dawson Bernard Lightman Piers J Hale Jonathan Smith Suzy Anger James Paradis Richard England Jude V Nixon David Amigoni James ElwickThis eight-volume, reset edition in two parts collects rare primary sources on Victorian science, literature and culture. The sources cover both scientific writing that has an aesthetic component – what might be called 'the literature of science' – and more overtly literary texts that deal with scientific matters.
Victorian Science and Literature, Part I Vol 4
by Jonathan Smith Bernard Lightman Gowan Dawson James Paradis Suzy Anger David Amigoni Richard England James Elwick Piers J Hale Jude V NixonThis eight-volume, reset edition in two parts collects rare primary sources on Victorian science, literature and culture. The sources cover both scientific writing that has an aesthetic component – what might be called 'the literature of science' – and more overtly literary texts that deal with scientific matters.
Victorian Science and Literature, Part II vol 5
by Gowan Dawson Bernard Lightman Claire Brock Marwa Elshakry Sujit Sivasundaram Ralph O'Connor Roger Luckhurst Justin SausmanThis eight-volume, reset edition in two parts collects rare primary sources on Victorian science, literature and culture. The sources cover both scientific writing that has an aesthetic component – what might be called 'the literature of science' – and more overtly literary texts that deal with scientific matters.
Victorian Science and Literature, Part II vol 6
by Gowan Dawson Bernard Lightman Claire Brock Marwa Elshakry Sujit Sivasundaram Ralph O'Connor Roger Luckhurst Justin SausmanThis eight-volume, reset edition in two parts collects rare primary sources on Victorian science, literature and culture. The sources cover both scientific writing that has an aesthetic component – what might be called 'the literature of science' – and more overtly literary texts that deal with scientific matters.
Victorian Science and Literature, Part II vol 7
by Bernard Lightman Marwa Elshakry Sujit Sivasundaram Gowan Dawson Claire Brock Roger Luckhurst Ralph O'Connor Justin SausmanThis eight-volume, reset edition in two parts collects rare primary sources on Victorian science, literature and culture. The sources cover both scientific writing that has an aesthetic component – what might be called 'the literature of science' – and more overtly literary texts that deal with scientific matters.
Victorian Science and Literature, Part II vol 8
by Gowan Dawson Bernard Lightman Claire Brock Marwa Elshakry Sujit Sivasundaram Ralph O'Connor Roger Luckhurst Justin SausmanThis eight-volume, reset edition in two parts collects rare primary sources on Victorian science, literature and culture. The sources cover both scientific writing that has an aesthetic component – what might be called 'the literature of science' – and more overtly literary texts that deal with scientific matters.
Victorian Secrecy: Economies of Knowledge and Concealment
by Denise Tischler MillsteinWhether commercial, personal, political, professional, or spiritual, knowledge was capital for the Victorians in their ongoing project of constructing a modern information-based society. Victorian Secrecy explores the myriad ways in which knowledge was both zealously accumulated and jealously guarded by individuals, institutions, and government entities in Victorian Britain. Offering a wide variety of critical approaches and disciplinary perspectives, the contributors examine secretive actors with respect to a broad range of subjects, including the narrator in Tess of the d'Urbervilles, John Henry Newman's autobiographical novel Loss and Gain, Richard Dadd's The Fairy Feller's Masterstroke, modes of detection in Bleak House, the secret history of Harriet Martineau's role in the repeal of the Corn Law, and Victorian stage magicians. Taken together, the essays provide a richly textured account of which modes of hiding and revealing articulate secrets in Victorian literature and culture; how social relations are formed and reformed in relationship to secrecy; and what was at stake individually, aesthetically, and culturally in the Victorians' clandestine activities.