The Facts on File Companion to British Poetry: 19th Century (Companion to Literature Series)

481 Pages·2009·5.12 MB·English

by  William Flesch

the fa cts on fil e
C o m p a n i o n t o
British
Poetry
19th century
C D
William Flesch
the Facts on File Companion to British poetry, 19th Century
copyright © 2010 William Flesch
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-publication Data
Flesch, William, 1956–
The Facts on File companion to 19th century British poetry / William Flesch.
p. cm.—(companion to literature)
includes bibliographical references and index.
isBN 978-0-8160-5896-9 (alk. paper)
1. english poetry—19th century—history and criticism. i. Flesch, William, 1956– ii. Title. iii. Title: companion
to 19th century British poetry.
PR591.F54 2009
821'.809—dc22 2008032028
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This book is printed on acid-free paper and contains 30 percent postconsumer recycled content.
To my parents

Contents
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aBout this Book vii
introduction ix
a-to-Z entries 1
aPPendixes
i. Glossary 441
ii. selected BiBlioGraPhy 445
index 453

About this book
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This book offers accounts of a number of major poems Valentine cunningham’s The Victorians: An Anthology of
as well as significant minor ones, from Adonais (major) Poetry and Poetics; christopher Ricks’s New Oxford Book
to The Zilver-Weed (minor), by the very many major of Victorian Verse; and isobel armstong, Joseph Bris-
and significant minor poets of the 19th century. Dur- tow, and cath sharrock’s Nineteenth Century Women
ing the period, Britain probably produced more good Poets: An Oxford Anthology.
poems than any other country in any other comparable The online Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is
period, and it is a pleasure to read them and to intro- the first place to go for biographical information about
duce them to other readers. the poets profiled here. Though not always perfectly
Just to say so is to risk sounding polemical, so i should accurate (it was a pleasure to send in minor corrections
also say, straight out, that the book does have what might to dozens of entries, as i am sure it will be painful to
be taken, in the current climate, as a polemical purpose. receive dozens of minor corrections to this volume), it
i follow the american legal philosopher Ronald Dwor- gives a very sound first impression of the figures it
kin’s maxim that every work of art, and thus every poem, treats; it is also very worthwhile going to the archive
should be interpreted so as to make it as good as it pos- from the original Dictionary of National Biography to
sibly can be. Of course, notions of what makes a poem which each entry provides a link.
“good” are subjective, but, nevertheless, the aim should This is a book of many debts, which i can repay here
be to understand what makes these poems valuable in only in the most partial manner: to isobel armstrong,
themselves. Fortunately, 19th-century poetry is easy to stephen Brown, John Burt, stephen Burt, Daniel Flesch,
value very highly because it is so indubitably marvelous. Debra Fried, hannah Ginsborg, Nick halpern, Neil
it also often treats the question of what makes poetry a hertz, herb marks, Robin Feuer miller, Jeff Nunokawa,
good in itself in a world in which military conflict and adela Pinch, laura Quinney, christopher Ricks, Joseph
science and industry are rapidly transforming cultures solman, Paul solman, Willard spiegelman, Karen
beyond recognition, and so it asks to be read according swann, Gordon Teskey, and helen Vendler. adam Rut-
to some such maxim as Dworkin’s. ledge was a superb research assistant and saved me from
Because most of the poems i discuss are probably many inaccuracies, both of fact and of interpretation.
included in anthologies, i should mention those i think Jeff soloway, who commissioned this volume, was end-
are the best: harold Bloom and lionel Trilling’s sec- lessly patient.
tions on British romantic literature and Victorian liter- William Flesch
ature in the Oxford Anthology of English Literature; arlington, massachusetts
vii

introduCtion
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This book covers the major British poets and poems may be said to culminate in the Victorian era. a list of
of the 19th century. if the readings here make a single that era’s great novelists would be an unusually long
argument, that would be that 19th-century poetry, one, probably as long as that of all the other great
whatever else it is about, is about the nature, meaning, english-language novelists put together, and would
fate—the essence—of what poetry is. Different kinds of include at or near the top charles Dickens, William
urgency attend this question as the century unfolds— makepeace Thackeray, George eliot, emily Brontë,
urgencies that arise from larger historical, economic, charlotte Brontë, anthony Trollope, George meredith,
social, political, and literary contexts. The larger liter- Thomas hardy, and henry James.
ary context is the most convenient for a quick account While it is noteworthy that six of the nine members
of the through-lines of 19th-century poetry, because of this list are also accomplished poets (Thackeray,
poetry is a part of the history of literature. eliot, the Brontës, meredith, and hardy), of these, only
Nineteenth-century poetry starts with poetry at the hardy is a great poet. The great Victorian poets are not
center of British literary culture, because the romantic nearly as widely read now as the Victorian novelists,
poets and their satellites make up the most important but they would include, preeminently, Tennyson and
literary movement of the beginning of the century. But Browning, as well as hardy and the early William But-
by mid-century, and certainly at the end of the cen- ler Yeats. expanding this list to include the near great,
tury, poetry no longer commands an exclusive position we would add elizabeth Barrett Browning, both Dante
at the center of literary culture and, indeed, evinces in Gabriel Rossetti and christina Rossetti, and William
incipient form some of the marginalization that charac- morris. Of this set of poets, it could only be argued of
terizes the study and practice of poetry today. Poetry Yeats and christina Rossetti that they did not go
was still widely read, and poets were still thought of as beyond their romantic forebears in the line of long and
cultural heroes at the end of the century (certainly a quasi-novelistic narrative.
decade before its end, when lord Tennyson and Rob- Of course the romantics did a lot of storytelling in
ert Browning died). But the historical trajectory of their poems as well. The very idea of a ballad, even if
19th-century english literature is best traced as the lyrical (as in William Wordsworth and samuel Taylor
history of what has come to be called the rise of the coleridge’s revolutionary 1798 book Lyrical Ballads) is
novel; that rise began in the 18th century (with henry that it tells a story. William Blake’s great epics also tell
Fielding and samuel Richardson, preeminently) but stories, more or less. Though their narrative mode is
ix