The Lyric Poem and Aestheticism

Lyric poetry’s response to a crisis of relevance in Victorian Modernity


This study explores lyric poetry’s response to a crisis of relevance in Victorian Modernity, offering an analysis of literature usually elided by studies of the modern formation of the genre and uncovering previously unrecognized discourses within it. Setting the focal aestheticist poetry (c. 1860 to 1914) within much broader historical, theoretical and aesthetic frames, it speaks to those interested in Victorian and modernist literature and culture, but also to a burgeoning audience of the `new lyric studies’. The six case studies introduce fresh poetic voices as well as giving innovative analyses of canonical writers (such as D. G. Rossetti, Ezra Pound, A. C. Swinburne).


Key Features




Challenges and transforms existing narratives of the modern formation of the `lyric’ genre through engagement with a body of work that larger-scale genre histories elide
Offers innovative analysis of aestheticist poetry from the 1860s to the early years of the twentieth century
Provides three fresh theoretical frames to examine the relationship between poetry and modernity
Includes case studies featuring a range of literary figures such as D. G. Rossetti, Alice Meynell, Thomas Hardy, Michael Field, Arthur Symons, A. C. Swinburne and Ezra Pound