Victorian Scrutinies: Reviews of Poetry, 1830-1870

360 Pages·1972·7.59 MB·English

by  Isobel Armstrong

Victorian Scrutinies
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Victorian Scrutinies
Reviews of Poetry 1830-1870
ISOBEL ARMSTRONG
THE ATHLONE PRESS of the University of London
1972
Published by
THE ATHLONE PRESS
UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
at 4 Gower Street London w c I
Distributed by Tiptree Book Services Ltd
Tiptree, Essex
Isobel Armstrong 1972
0 485 11131 4
Printed in Great Britain by
WESTERN PRINTING SERVICES LTD
Bristol
For Mary and Richard Hoggart
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Acknowledgements
My thanks go above all to Professor W. E. Houghton, who supplied
me freely with information about authorship from the unpublished
volumes of the Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals. Like all
workers in this field, I am deeply indebted to him, not least for the
way in which he responded to what must have been my many irksome
requests with generous wit and kindness.
I thank A. S. Byatt and Barbara Hardy for reading and advising me
about the manuscript of this book. My colleagues have been most
generous with their help. I am grateful to John Chalker, Lilian Hadda-
kin, Shirley Jones, Trevor Lloyd, T. McFarland, Elizabeth Quinn,
Patrick Roberts, W. A. Smeaton and Keith Walker for the time and
trouble they took to answer my requests for information. I thank Hans
de Groot, John Hopkins and Joanne Shattuck for their willingness to
talk over some of the problems of the book, Janet Martin for her hard
work on the index, and Jacqueline Peverley and Anne Stanley for much
practical help. I am especially grateful to Brenda Feig for her meticulous
and painstaking assistance.
LA.
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Contents
Abbreviations Further Reading in Periodical Reviews xi
INTRODUCTION 1
The terms of critical discussion, 2; Issues raised by
Tennyson's early poetry, 14; Arnold and the 1853 Preface, 31;
Change in the 1860s, 50; Notes, 59
SECTION ONE: Tennyson controversy to 1842
1 Tennyson, Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, 1830: by W. J. Fox 71
2 Tennyson, Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, 1830: by A. H. Hallam 84
3 Tennyson, Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, 1830: by J. Wilson
102
4 Tennyson, Poems, 1842: by J. Sterling
125
Further Reading in Periodical Reviews
148
SECTION TWO: The debate around Arnold's 1853 Preface
and two related reviews of Tennyson
5 Arnold, The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems, 1849; 153
Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems, 1852; Alexander
Smith, Poems, 1853; William Sydney Walker, The
Poetical Remains, 1852; William Allingham, Poems, 1850:
by A. H. Clough
6 Arnold, Poems, 1853: by C. Kingsley
173
7 Arnold, The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems, 1849; 186
Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems, 1852; Poems, 1853;
Alexander Smith, Poems, 1853: by W. C. Roscoe
8 Tennyson, The Princess, 1847: by C. P. Chretien 200
9 Tennyson, In Memoriam, 1850: by F. Lushington 223
Further Reading in Periodical Reviews 237