Rhythm and Will in Victorian PoetryIn Rhythm and Will in Victorian Poetry, first published in 1999, Matthew Campbell explores the work of four Victorian poets - Tennyson, Browning, Hopkins and Hardy - as they show a consistent and innovative concern with questions of human agency and will. The Victorians saw the virtues attendant upon a strong will as central to themselves and to their culture, and Victorian poetry strove to find an aesthetic form to represent this sense of the human will. Through close study of the metre, rhyme and rhythm of a wide range of poems - including monologue, lyric and elegy - Campbell reveals how closely technical questions of poetics are related, in the work of these poets, to issues of psychology, ethics and social change. He goes on to discuss more general questions of poetics, and the implications of the achievement of the Victorian poets in a wider context, from Milton through Romanticism and into contemporary critical debate. |
Contents
| 1 | |
PART ONE Rhythms of will | 13 |
PART TWO Monologue and monodrama | 97 |
PART THREE Making a will | 155 |
Notes | 239 |
| 259 | |
| 269 | |
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Common terms and phrases
achieve action active agency allows appears asks attempts beat become begins body Book bring Browning Browning’s carry character choice close comes conception consciousness continues criticism dead death describes echo effect elegy English existence experience face feeling final follow given gives Hallam Hardy Hardy’s heart Hopkins human imagined lack language later limits living London lyric matter Maud meaning Memoriam memory metre metrical mind monologue move movement nature never objects ofthe opening Oxford University Press passage passive past perception personality picture play poem poet poet’s poetic poetry position possible present question reader reading represent rhyme rhythm rhythmic says seems sense shows soul sound speak speaker speech stanza stress suggests Tennyson thing thought tion turn verse Victorian voice whole Wordsworth writing written