Search

This paper probes the roles that fungi play in Dickens's urban poetics. Molds, mildews, and other rots shaped in important ways both Dickens's experience of London and the city he created in his writing, beginning with Sketches by Boz. The Victorian period saw a slow and uneven paradigm change in the understanding of decay, and fungi in particular were perceived to pose a great threat to the British empire. Bringing Little Dorrit and Great Expectations in conversation with the writings of the mycologist Miles Joseph Berkeley, the essay argues that Dickens's later fungi point toward the beginnings of ideas about the place of humans within the natural world that would have coexisted uncomfortably with the general anthropocentrism of Dickens's natural theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The feeling of being both physically and spiritually imprisoned recurs in Emily Brontë's poetry and novel expressed in literal and figurative 'chains', 'fetters' and 'prisons'. Such imagery appears to be related to a mystic view of the world, Wesleyan borrowings and Platonic overtones, with a possible admixture of the Stoic philosophy of Epictetus. This paper aims to show how such philosophical "shreds" — derived from various sources, personal as well as school readings — often help the meaning of the imagery move towards a "metaphysical" dimension: never clearly formulated in a cosmological system, yet suggestive of vague but powerful undercurrents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Anthropocene demands that we think about the human, and the humanities, in species terms. This essay takes up this challenge by examining how we mourn the loss of species and what role elegy might play in an age of extinction. It explores the implications of reading in the context of the Anthropocene, when human inscription becomes legible in the geologic record and literary texts take on surprising, counter-intuitive new meanings. Ultimately, this paper seeks to extend our understanding of poetics beyond the human by exploring the relationship between literary and biological form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing popularity of poems, aided by the spread of literacy and of the printed word, meant that some of these literary works became widely known and frequently cited. Some of their lines and phrases began an independent life at a certain point and have since then been used as idioms both in spoken and in written language. The present paper traces a handful of these to their origins in 19th century English poems in order to better understand how they acquired their present meaning as idioms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shelley, one of the major English Romantic poets, was greatly influenced by the Indian thought that reached him through the works of the early English Orientalists of his time. Although his dream of personally visiting India had never materialized, his favorite readings included Sir William Jones' poems and essays on Indian subjects in the 1770s, Captain Francis Wilford's essay, "Mount Caucasus" (1801), Sidney Owenson's "The Missionary: An Indian Tale" (1811) and James Henry Lawrence's "The Empire of the Nairs, or the Rights of Women: An Utopian Romance" (1811). This paper is an attempt to provide an account of the influence of these works on some of Shelley's major poems (such as "Queen Mab," "Alastor," "The Revolt of Islam," "Prometheus Unbound," "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" and "Adonais") in their setting, style and themes. As a revolutionary, Shelley was influenced by the forces of liberation and freedom suggested by oriental models as opposed to the hackneyed and overused neoclassicism of European literature. This paper will argue how his was an effort at a sympathetic understanding of India as a cradle of ancient civilization that knew no divide in terms of the so-called Western moral and racial superiority. His creative vision of India embraced an approach to integration as opposed to the Victorian reaction of mixed feelings. In fact, the Indian influence was not just a matter of stylistic embellishment away from the traditional but an indirect yet powerful means of attacking the Western political system he so passionately rebelled against. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores how Shelley's distinctive deployments of “vitality” – as an immaterial force that is essential to life – punctuate the poetry and the essays, from the “mockery of vital hues” on Alastor's “cheek of death” to the “bright shape of vital stone that drew the life out of Pygmalion” in The Witch of Atlas. The most illuminating account of Shelley's investment in vitality appears in A Defence of Poetry, where the language of poets is said to be “vitally metaphorical,”marking the before “unapprehended relations of things.” In this paper, I examine how this “vitality of disappearance” is in play in “To a Skylark,” where what Gilles Deleuze might have called the bird's literal and figurative “lines of overflight” mark the “vital” conjunction between a sensory disappearance and aesthetic vitality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the association between the works of William Morris and J.R.R. Tolkien, and the influence of Morris on Tolkien. Topics include a personal connection between the Morris family and the Tolkien family; treatment of romances in the major works on Morris; and the ambition of Tolkien and his friends to emulate the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of Morris and his friends, and to kindle a new light, for England, through poetry.

The article illustrates that poet and theologian John Henry Newman thought it important for all humans to develop emotions what another of contributors has called "=an integrative habit of mind. It laying out the way the notion of "heart speaking to heart" plays through many of Newman's theological and controversial writings. It discusses hoe how Newman's chosen motto functions as central to the stories he tells in his two novels "Loss and Gain" and "Callista."

The article Aquino argues that poet and theologian John Henry Newman's notion of an ‘educated conscience' is saturated by a kind of implicit reasoning, the operation of which is external to a person's awareness. It manages to make some subtle adjustments in our understanding of what Newman came eventually to call the illative sense.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses several essays published within issue on topics including significance of writings of poet and theologian John Henry Newman, Newman's motto cor ad cor loquitur in his argumentative writings; and Newman's written work in Anglican period.

The article discusses a March 25, 1806 letter written by English labouring class poet Robert Bloomfield to British Whig Member of Parliament for Suffolk, England Sir Charles Bunbury about Whig-party literary patronage for Bloomfield's poetry collection entitled "Wild Flowers, or, Pastoral and Local Poetry." The relationship between the two men is explored. A transcription of the letter is provided which details visits made by Bloomfield to varied politicians accompanied by letters of introduction written by Bunbury,

The article discusses the theme of politics and networks in British Victorian era poetry in response to essays by scholars Alison Chapman, Kirstie Blair, and Julia Saville in the same issue. Topics include the endorsement of Italian Unification or Risorgimento in 19th century British and American expatriate poetry, religious poetry in relation to the Oxford Movement in England and America, and the failures of French ruler Louis Napoleon in the poem "Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society," by Robert Browning.

The article discusses the friendship between the British poet William Wordsworth and the Irish scientist and mathematician William Rowan Hamilton. More specifically, the author explores how as a result of his friendship with the poet, Hamilton was led to question and clarify his own positions regarding the relationship between science and poetry.

In an essay, the author discusses the sonnets of the 19th-century English poet John Clare in the context of contemporary debates regarding the proper form and style of the genre. The essay traces Clare's achievements as a writer of sonnets, paying particular focus to the subtlety of the practice he develops in response to contemporary debate. In addition, the author examines Clare's engagement with the experiments in sonnet form undertaken by his fellow poet John Keats.

The article offers criticism on the poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn" by English poet John Keats. The author discusses the equation of beauty and truth in the poem as well as the conflict between sensation and philosophy in the poem. The author explores Keats' philosophical education, focusing on philosophers Immanuel Kant and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Also discussed is Keats' use of ekphrasis.

The article discusses politics in the poetry of Romantic poet John Keats. The author discusses Keats's sympathies to political progress and compares him to the poet William Wordsworth, who wrote "The Excursion." Other topics include Keats's poems "To Autumn" and "The Fall of Hyperion," themes of mythology and nature in Keats's poetry, the concept of poetic weaving, and ideas of equality in Keats's poetry.

The literary annuals and gift books were a new publishing phenomenon in the early nineteenth century. Designed as souvenir Christmas presents, complete with sentimental poems, anthologisable prose extracts and attractive ‘embellishments’, the books catered specifically for a female readership and were symptomatic of the changes in literary taste in the period. While the subject matter of the anthologies was eclectic, a significant component, which has been neglected by literary historians and critics, was devoted to classical topics. This article considers this understudied area of nineteenth-century classical reception through a focus upon the work of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, known as L.E.L., who was one of the most celebrated and regular contributors to the annuals. As a commercially successful poet, L.E.L. offered a new commodified, feminine, and sentimental perception of the classical legacy. But, it is argued, her inclination towards cynicism and self-conscious belatedness – which has been termed an ‘Art of Disillusion’ – also produced a sophisticated and ironic comment on the place of classicism in the modern consumer age. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a translated reprint of the anonymous biography of English poet William Blake entitled "William Blake, ein ausgezeichneter Künstler, Dichter und Narr" which appeared in serialized format in 1833 issues of the German periodical Magazin für die Literatur des Auslandes, III, No.145-147. Blake was born in London, England on November 28, 1757, apprenticed as an engraver, married neighbor Catherine Boucher, developed a career as both poet and artist, and died August 12, 1828 (1827).

The article considers the development of travel literature featuring the Lake District of England in the 18th and 19th centuries by focusing on the interrelationship between cartography, poetry, and travel writing. The author focuses on the maps in the book "A Series of Accurate Maps of the Principal Lakes of Cumberland, Westmorland & Lancashire [...] First Surveyed and Planned Between 1783 and 1794," by Peter Crosthwaite, with an introduction by William Rollinson, which feature local literary landmarks and poetry excerpts. He also considers how the poetry of English poet William Wordsworth makes use of cartography and inscriptions. Travel guides including "Black's Picturesque Guide to the Lakes" are discussed.

The article presents an exploration into the dialect poetry of the African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, focusing on his body of poems published through the popular periodical "Century" in the 1890s. Details are given contrasting the standard and dialect-based writings of Dunbar. Discussion is also given examining Dunbar's personal aesthetics in both his writing itself and his meta-description of writing within his works. Final analysis is offered charting the development of Dunbar's corpus of dialect poetry within the "Century" and his accomplishments with the journal's readership.

Explores the friendships and intellectual acquaintances English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley made among the Saint Bartholomew's Hospital medical community during the spring of 1811. Initial steps Shelley took towards becoming a surgeon himself; Context for the science found in 'Prometheus Unbound' and later poetry; Shelley's use of a contemporary vocabulary employed within the science of life.

Discusses John Keats' writing of the poem 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci.' Possibility that the poem constitutes a form of an ironic riposte to the anonymous Z, a writer for 'Blackwood's'; Self-conscious literariness on Keats' part; Satire on types of poetry written in the absence of the imagination.

Discusses Lord Byron's 1814 poem 'Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte,' which he wrote when Napoleon had formally abdicated and agreed to retire to the Isle of Elba. Conjunction of myth and history that has been operative throughout the poem; Stanzas added by Byron to the poem; Anecdote alluding to Napoleon's having found leisure for an unworthy 'amour.'

Discusses 19th century English poet Lord Byron's resentment of writer and translator Francis Cohen's insinuation that he had derived the style and tone of his poem 'Don Juan' from Giambattista Casti. Influence of Casti's 'Novelle Galanti' on Byron' 'Don Juan'; Cohen's refusal to acknowledge the originality of 'Don Juan.'

This article begins by examining Hopkins's study of Greek and Latin at Highgate School and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he got a First in both Mods and Greats. In 1884 Hopkins was appointed Professor of Greek at University College, Dublin, and planned--but did not complete---a large number of research projects: these included work on Homer, Aeschylus, and Sophocles. Greek themes are often found in Hopkins's creative work. Especially important in Hopkins's poems is the use of two forms of hyperbaton that derive from Greek syntax, embedded sentences and the placing at the start of a sentence material that normally comes later. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]