This work takes a new approach to the evolution of the modern English lyric, emphasizing the way in which several generations of poets, reacting to post-Reformation readers' dislike for invented poetic narratives, competed for the right to commemorate important public occasions and slowly expanded the range of acceptable occasions. The book demonstrates that many fundamental features of a typical modern lyric actually evolved as responses to the limitations of occasional poetry.

Gothic Science Fiction explores the fascinating world of gothic influenced science fiction. From Frankenstein to Doctor Who and from H. G Wells to Stephen King, the book charts the rise of a genre and follows the descent into darkness that consumes it.

The Open Book is a provocative study of literary influence at work in English writing from Hardy to Woolf. Jensen reimagines the links between text and context as she endeavors to historicize literary influence, by taking Bloomian "anxiety" and Kristevan "intertextuality" into fields of actual history and biography. Jensen both borrows from and deconstructs the ideas of thesetheorists as she reads the texts of Hardy, Stephen, Woolf, Mansfield, andMiddleton Murry. By doing so, The Open Book offers a fresh and pragmatic opening onto the relation between personal, cultural and institutional history on the one hand, and literary history on the other.

In his study of Romantic naturalists and early environmentalists, Dewey W. Hall asserts that William Wordsworth and Ralph Waldo Emerson were transatlantic literary figures who were both influenced by the English naturalist Gilbert White. In Part 1, Hall examines evidence that as Romantic naturalists interested in meteorology, Wordsworth and Emerson engaged in proto-environmental activity that drew attention to the potential consequences of the locomotive's incursion into Windermere and Concord. In Part 2, Hall suggests that Wordsworth and Emerson shaped the early environmental movement through their work as poets-turned-naturalists, arguing that Wordsworth influenced Octavia Hill's contribution to the founding of the United Kingdom's National Trust in 1895, while Emerson inspired John Muir to spearhead the United States' National Parks movement in 1890. Hall's book traces the connection from White as a naturalist-turned-poet to Muir as the quintessential early environmental activist who camped in Yosemite with President Theodore Roosevelt. Throughout, Hall raises concerns about the growth of industrialization to make a persuasive case for literature's importance to the rise of environmentalism.

A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century, first published in 1926, presents the great artistic and literary innovations of the Romantic movement according to an often overlooked and unacknowledged definition of 'Romanticism', which is of particular relevance in the consideration of the English Romantic spirit: pertaining to the style of the Christian and popular literature of the Middle Ages. The author recapitulates the key contributions of English poets - including Scott, Coleridge and Keats - in light of their recovery of certain themes and leitmotifs that clearly distinguish the Romantic style. In addition, the development of the Romantic movement in France and Germany is given some attention, and the specific tendencies of their respective approaches is considered in relation to England. The emergence of the Pre-Raphaelites is investigated, and a tentative evaluation of the progress of English Romanticism in the nineteenth century is offered.

First published in 1984, this biography gives an account of Jonathan Swift s political ideas and provides a critical commentary on his major works. With its emphasis on Swift as a political writer, the title offers a revision of the prevailing view of Swift s politics and its application in the study of his works. Alan Downie argues that in terms of the party politics of the day Swift is neither a Whig nor Tory. Swift thought of himself as an Old Whig, and said he was of the old Whig principles, without the modern articles and refinements . Downie shows how Swift s writings consistently make political points about society s deviation from an ideal. As Swift s views on morality, religion and politics are so closely linked, an understanding of his political ideas is vital; this reissue provides a detailed analysis of this aspect of Swift s writings and views, and as such will be of great interest to any students researching his satire. "

The scholars who have contributed to this book were asked to take part in a collaborative act of demystification, a reconsideration of the eschatological ideas of the 1890s in the light of the critical thought of the 1990s. Their essays draw upon a range of approaches, and are broadly interdisciplinary. All are characterized by the realization that, with a century's hindsight, the late 1800s should be seen not so much as a period of decadence as of discovery and growth.

Bodies and Machines is a striking and persuasive examination of the body-machine complex and its effects on the modern American cultural imagination. Bodies and Machines, first published in 1992, explores the links between techniques of representation and social and scientific technologies of power in a wide range of realist and naturalist discourses and practices. Seltzer draws on realist and naturalist writing, such as the work of Hawthorne and Henry James, and the discourses which inform it: from scouting manuals and the programmes of systematic management to accounts of sexual biology and the rituals of consumer culture. He explores other mass-produced and mass-consumed cultural forms, including visual representations such as composite photographs, scale models, and the astonishing iconography of standardization.

Ambrose Bierce was born in 1842 and mysteriously disappeared in 1914. During his lifetime, he was a controversial and prolific writer, and there is growing interest in his works. As a Union soldier during the Civil War, he witnessed bloodshed and the atrocities of battle. After the war, he began a career as a journalist in San Francisco, where many of his newspaper columns were filled with venom and daring. In addition, he wrote war stories and tales of the supernatural, along with an assortment of poems. Today, he is probably best remembered as the author of "The Devil's Dictionary, " originally published as "The Cynic's Dictionary" in 1906. This reference is a guide to his life and writings.

An opening essay overviews Bierce's contribution to literature and journalism, and a chronology summarizes the most important events in his life. The bulk of the Companion comprises alphabetically arranged entries on Bierce's major works and characters and on historical persons and writers who figured prominently in his life and career. Thus the volume provides coverage of Bierce's contemporaries, many of whom he satirized in his scathing newspaper columns. Many of the entries list works for further reading, and the book closes with a selected, general bibliography. Because of Bierce's concern with so many issues of his day, the volume offers a valuable perspective on American culture during the time in which he lived.

The study of Ruskin's work and influence is now a feature of several critical disciplines. New Approaches to Ruskin, first published in 1981, reflects this, gathering some of the most distinguished writers on Ruskin and joining them with others who have undertaken significant research in the field of Ruskin studies. The authors were all specially commissioned for this volume and were chosen to represent as wide a variety of approaches as possible to this key figure of nineteenth-century culture. This book is ideal for students of art history.

New essays offering fresh glimpses of Romanticism as interdisciplinary and cross-linguistic, illuminating the discursive features and the pan-European nature of the movement. Romanticism bubbled up as lava from such historical eruptions as the Napoleonic Wars. The power of its flow across disciplines and linguistic borders reminds us that the use of the term in a context limited to one linguistic, national, or political tradition, or to one discipline or area of human development, shows an essential ignorance of the ideational configurations elaborated and lived out by the movement. Among its consistent norms are the notion ofreality as a transcendent self-unfolding Geist, everything existing in a dialectical relationship with all else; the position that art reveals mythic understructures of reality; and that all kinds of kinship are more normalthan isolation. This book brings together essays that highlight the inclusivity of Romanticism. A team of eleven scholars offers fresh glimpses of Romanticism as it manifests itself in a number of disciplines, including most prominently literature, but also music, painting, and the sciences. In so doing, the contributors treat Romanticism as interdisciplinary and cross-linguistic, providing data and interpretive viewpoints that illuminate the discursive features and the pan-European nature of the movement. Contributors: Lloyd Davies, Ellis Dye, Stacey Hahn, Hollie Markland Harder, Jennifer Law-Sullivan, Sarah Lippert, Marjean D. Purinton, Ashley Shams, Kaitlin Gowan Southerly. Larry H. Peer is Professor of Comparative Literature at Brigham Young University. Christopher R. Clason is Professor of German at Oakland University.

This inspiring survey challenges conventional ways of viewing the Victorian novel. This book: provides time maps and overviews of historical and social contexts; considers the relationship between the Victorian novel and historical, religious and bibliographic writing; features short biographies of over forty Victorian authors, including Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Robert Louis Stevenson; offers close readings of over 30 key texts, among them Charlotte Bront's "Jane Eyre" (1847) and Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (1897), as well as key presences, such as John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" (Pt 1, 1676, Pt 2, 1684); and, also covers topics such as colonialism, scientific speculation, the psychic and the supernatural, and working class reading.

"Palgrave Advances in Oscar Wilde Studies" is a comprehensive guide to recent critical approaches. Topics covered include Gay Studies, Feminist Criticism, Material Culture, Religion, Philosophy, Performance Studies, Aestheticism, Biography, Textual Studies and Postcolonial Theory. The book is designed to acquaint readers of all levels with the history of scholarship in a range of fields and suggest ways that Wilde's work offer new areas for research. The collection also provides a chronology and detailed bibliography.

Northanger Abbey was one of Jane Austen's earliest manuscripts; Persuasion was her last. Published together in a single volume after her death, the two books differ widely. Northanger Abbey is a spirited, Gothic parody, while Persuasion has increasingly been seen as a new direction for the Austen canon. The two texts have been widely analysed and debated since publication, and continue to be so today. In this Readers' Guide, Enit Karafili Steiner: - Delineates a clear trajectory through the books' many interpretations over two centuries, mapping these out thematically and chronologically. - Contextualises and brings into dialogue influential approaches such as psychoanalytical criticism, structuralism, deconstruction, Marxism, New Historicism, and feminism. - Discusses film adaptations of the novels and their relation to literary criticism.

This varied set presents a rich selection of renowned and lesser-known treatments of the Russian masters - considered by some the greatest novelists of all time - from the 1920s through to the '90s. Routledge Library Editions: Tolstoy and Dostoevsky includes works of accessible biography, lucid literary criticism and insightful scholarship, investigating a wide range of themes: Tolstoy's aesthetic philosophy, Dostoevsky' curiously under-studied social and political views, Feminism, Nietzsche, and much else.

This is the perfect study guide to Shelley's classic gothic novel, "Frankenstein" - a key text for introductory literature courses at undergraduate level.Mary Shelley's classic gothic novel, "Frankenstein", is one of the most widely studied and read novels in English Literature. Aside from its key position in the English Literature canon and its wide cultural influence, the novel has been the subject of a vast array of interpretations and so leaves students needing guidance through this maze of reading.This guide offers an authoritative, up-to-date guide for students, introducing its context, language, themes, criticism and afterlife, leading students to a more sophisticated understanding of the text. It is the ideal guide to reading and studying the novel, setting "Frankenstein" in its historical, intellectual and cultural contexts, offering analyses of its themes, style and structure, providing exemplary close readings and presenting an up-to-date account of its critical reception.It also includes an introduction to "Frankenstein's" substantial history as an adapted text on stage and screen and its wider influence in film and popular culture. It includes points for discussion, suggestions for further study and an annotated guide to relevant reading."Continuum Reader's Guides" are clear, concise and accessible introductions to key texts in literature and philosophy. Each book explores the themes, context, criticism and influence of key works, providing a practical introduction to close reading, guiding students towards a thorough understanding of the text. They provide an essential, up-to-date resource, ideal for undergraduate students.

This new volume demonstrates the extent and diversity of Coleridge's writings on the sublime. It highlights the development of his aesthetic of transcendence from an initial emphasis on the infinite progressiveness of humanity, through a fascination with landscape as half-revealing the infinite forces underlying it, and with literature as producing a similar feeling of the inexpressible, to an increasing emphasis on contemplating the ineffable nature of God, as well as the transcendent power of Reason or spiritual insight.

Drawing on recent theoretical developments in gender and men's studies, Pre-Raphaelite Masculinities shows how the ideas and models of masculinity were constructed in the work of artists and writers associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Paying particular attention to the representation of non-normative or alternative masculinities, the contributors take up the multiple versions of masculinity in Dante Gabriel Rossetti's paintings and poetry, masculine violence in William Morris's late romances, nineteenth-century masculinity and the medical narrative in Ford Madox Brown's Cromwell on His Farm, accusations of 'perversion' directed at Edward Burne-Jones's work, performative masculinity and William Bell Scott's frescoes, the representations of masculinity in Pre-Raphaelite illustration, aspects of male chastity in poetry and art, TannhAuser as a model for Victorian manhood, and masculinity and British imperialism in Holman Hunt's The Light of the World. Taken together, these essays demonstrate the far-reaching effects of the plurality of masculinities that pervade the art and literature of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

A regiment of women warriors strides across the battlefield of German culture - on the stage, in the opera house, on the page, and in paintings and prints. These warriors are re-imaginings by men of figures such as the Amazons, the Valkyries, and the biblical killer Judith. They are transgressive and therefore frightening figures who leave their proper female sphere and have to be made safe by being killed, deflowered, or both. This has produced some compelling works of Western culture - Cranach's and Klimt's paintings of Judith, Schiller's Joan of Arc, Hebbel's Judith, Wagner's Brunnhilde, Fritz Lang's Brunhild. Nowadays, representations of the woman warrior are used as a way of thinking about the woman terrorist. Women writers only engage with these imaginings at the end of the 19th century, but from the late 18th century on they begin to imagine fictional cross-dressers going to war in a realistic setting and thus think the unthinkable. What are the roots of these imaginings? And how are they related to Freud's ideas about women's sexuality?

First published in 1977, this book was the first to map extensively the ideological typography of the Anglo-American tradition of literary theory. It interrogates, comprehensively and in detail, the assumptions and categorical development within critical ideas from I. A. Richards and T. S. Eliot, through John Crowe Ransom and the New Criticism, to Northrop Frye and Marshall NcLuhan. This analysis reveals the Anglo-American tradition of literary-cultural theory is most properly intelligible within the overall field of social consciousness as an ideology of progressive cultural rationalization. Against a background of ideological development since nineteenth-century Romanticism, John Fekete illuminates the boundaries of literary ideology in relation to the shapes and changes of modern culture and society.

Why are material objects so prominent in European Romantic literature, both as symbol and organizing device? This collection of essays maintains that European Romantic culture and its aesthetic artifacts were fundamentally shaped by "object aesthetics," an artistic idiom of acknowledging, through a profound and often disruptive use of objects, the movement of Western aesthetic practice into Romantic self-projection and imagination. Of course Romanticism, in all its dissonance and anxiety, is marked by a number of new artistic practices, all of which make up a new aesthetics, accounting for the dialectical and symbolistic view of literature that began in the late eighteenth century. "Romanticism and the Object" adds to our understanding of that aesthetics by reexamining a wide range of texts in order to discover how the use of objects works in the literature of the time.

This book is a study of obscene print culture in nineteenth-century Britain. Colette Colligan argues that nineteenth-century obscenity was caught up in the global cultural traffic of print technology, international trade, and exoticism. Her analysis of select canonical and non-canonical publications reveals that obscenity intersected majority and minority culture, circulated from the farthest reaches of empire back to the metropolis, searched out new print and visual media, and built commercial and fantasmatic global networks for its continuation and survival.

Already in the century before photography's emergence as a mass medium, a diverse popular visual culture had risen to challenge the British literary establishment. The bourgeois fashion for new visual media -- from prints and illustrated books to theatrical spectacles and panoramas -- rejected high Romantic concepts of original genius and the sublime in favor of mass-produced images and the thrill of realistic effects. In response, the literary elite declared the new visual media an offense to Romantic idealism. "Simulations of nature," Coleridge declared, are "loathsome" and "disgusting." The Shock of the Real offers a tour of Romantic visual culture, from the West End stage to the tourist-filled Scottish Highlands, from the panoramas of Leicester Square to the photography studios of Second Empire Paris. But in presenting the relation between word and image in the late Georgian age as a form of culture war, the author also proposes an alternative account of Romantic aesthetic ideology -- as a reaction not against the rationalism of the Enlightenment but against the visual media age being born.

Gradually receiving legal rights from the eighteenth century onwards, Jews in Germany and Austria adapted to their surrounding culture with success but also with increasing strain as antisemitism gathered pace. Ritchie Robertson offers a cogent examination of this dual process and investigates how its tensions were articulated in a range of literary works, by both Jews and Gentile authors, from the Enlightenment to the 1930s.