The Realms of Verse 1830-1870: English Poetry in a Time of Nation-Building

by Matthew Reynolds

Overview

Robert and Elizabeth Browning, Tennyson, and Clough lived and wrote in a time of "nation-building." The Realms of Verse brings that political and intellectual context to life, and traces its influence on the narratives, language, and form of their poetry. Theoretically astute and historically detailed, this study is the most far-reaching reassessment of Victorian poetry to have been published in recent years.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198187127
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/05/2001
Pages:	316
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 5.50(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

St Anne's College, Oxford

Table of Contents

OrientationsPoetry and its timesPoets and nationsThree types of unityThe inspiration of ItalyFrom elegy to prophecyThe scope of narrative: Aurora LeighRepulsive CloughBrowning's alien pagesTennyson's BritainEver-broadening BritainThe empire of the imagiantionThe married state: Idylls of the KingCoda: After the realms of verseWorks citedIndex

Editorial Reviews

"Reynolds is an exceptionally incisive and lucid critic, keenly attentive to formal dynamics...but also deft in summarizing the distinctive political engagements of each poet.... This is an extremely important study, one of the best I know on the large ambitions of Victorian poetry."—James Eli Adams, Studies in English Literature 1500-1900

"That's Realms of Verse, not Reams, don't worry—though among the many virtues of this broad-minded, sure-handed book is the extent of ground it commands. Matthew Reynolds provides substantial new readings of the major long poems of mid-nineteenth-century Britain, in welcome technical detail and in persuasive political context.... Reynolds sets a high standard for the new century's work in our area of literary studies. May he find able emulators soon."—Victorian Studies

From the Publisher