The Spasmodic Poets: Appraising a Controversial School of Victorian Literature

Few stories capture the unique interplay of critical theory, mass media and public taste better than the story of the Spasmodics. These earnest, youthful and largely self-educated neo-Romantics hoped to become prophets who would influence literary society on a grand scale. From about 1850 to 1860, the Spasmodics successfully cast a long shadow over virtually every serious discussion of Victorian poetry. Many mid-nineteenth-century writers, including Tennyson, both Brownings and Matthew Arn...