Victorian Poets and the Politics of Culture: Discourse and Ideology

by Antony H. Harrison

Overview

With the publication of his ambitious new work Victorian Poets and the Politics of Culture, Antony H. Harrison continues his exploration of poetry as a significant force in the construction of English culture from 1837–1900.

In chapters focusing on Victorian medievalist discourse, Alfred Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Matthew Arnold, and Christina Rossetti, Harrison examines a range of Victorian poems in order to show the cultural work they accomplish. He illuminates, for example, such culturally prominent Victorian mythologies as the exaltation of motherhood, the Romanic appropriation of transcendent art, and the idealization of the gypsy as a culturally alien, exotic Other. His investigation of the ways in which the authors intervene in the discourses that articulate such mythologies and thereby accrue cultural power—along with his analysis of what constitutes "cultural power"—are original contributions to the field of Victorian studies.

"The power of Victorian poetry by midcentury was enhanced by the institutionalization of particular channels through which it circulated," Harrison writes. "poetry was 'consumed' in more varied forms than was other literature." Victorian Poets and the Politics of Culture has implications for both cultural studies and the study of literature outside the Victorian period.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813928401
Publisher:	University of Virginia Press
Publication date:	04/03/2014
Series:	Victorian Literature and Culture Series
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	189
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Antony H. Harrison is Professor of English at North Carolina State University and the author of several books in Victorian studies. He is the editor of The Letters of Christina Rossetti (Virginia) and coeditor of the forthcoming New Essays on Christina Rossetti.

Table of Contents

Antony H. Harrison is Professor of English at North Carolina State University and the author of several books in Victorian studies. He is the editor of The Letters of Christina Rossetti (Virginia) and coeditor of the forthcoming New Essays on Christina Rossetti.

What People are Saying About This

Linda Peterson

Antony Harrison's approach is quite special within the field of Victorian poetry. He resists treating poems as purely aesthertic objects; instead, he sees them as cultural artifacts and, as such, as participants in contemporary cultural discourses. His strength is his ability to keep an eye on the specific language of a poem and, simultaneously, on the larger cultural discourse in which it participates.

Editorial Reviews

Antony Harrison's approach is quite special within the field of Victorian poetry. He resists treating poems as purely aesthertic objects; instead, he sees them as cultural artifacts and, as such, as participants in contemporary cultural discourses. His strength is his ability to keep an eye on the specific language of a poem and, simultaneously, on the larger cultural discourse in which it participates.

Linda Peterson

"Antony Harrison's approach is quite special within the field of Victorian poetry. He resists treating poems as purely aesthertic objects; instead, he sees them as cultural artifacts and, as such, as participants in contemporary cultural discourses. His strength is his ability to keep an eye on the specific language of a poem and, simultaneously, on the larger cultural discourse in which it participates. "—Linda Peterson, Yale University

From the Publisher

This study is the second stage of a project to explore poetry as a significant force in the construction of English culture from 1837 to about 1880 (the first stage culminated with the author's 1990 work, Victorian Poets and Romantic Poems; Intertextuality and Ideology). The focus here is on how particular Victorian poets participated in and helped shape such culturally prominent Victorian mythologies as the exaltation of motherhood, the Romantic appropriation of transcendent art, and the idealization of the gypsy as an exotic Other. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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