The Realms of Verse 1830-1870 English Poetry in a Time of Nation-Building [Paperback]

The poets of the mid-nineteenth century lived in a time of nation-building. The Realms of Versebrings that political and intellectual context to life. It shows that the Italian Risorgimento raised questions about community and individual liberty which were especially problematic for subjects of the multi-national United Kingdom, and argues that these questions are at the heart of the poetry of Robert and Elizabeth Browning, Tennyson, and Clough. Their long poems characteristically tell stories about marriage, investigating the symbolic and actual interactions between that personal union and national unity. Their verse as a whole exploits correspondences between formal control and political government, and is alert to its own role in fostering a common culture. Historically detailed, theoretically astute, critically nimble, and stylishly written,The Realms of Verseis the most far-reaching reassessment of Victorian poetry to have been published in recent years.

Orientations
Poetry and its times
Poets and nations
Three types of unity
The inspiration of Italy
From elegy to prophecy
The scope of narrative:Aurora Leigh
Repulsive Clough
Browning's alien pages
Tennyson's Britain
Ever-broadening Britain
The empire of the imagiantion
The married state:Idylls of the King
Coda: After the realms of verse
Works cited
Index

Reynolds is an exceptionally incisive and lucid critic, keenly attentive to formal dynamics...but also deft in summarizing the distinctive political engagements of each poet.... This is an extremely important study, one of the best I know on the large ambitions of Victorian poetry. --James Eli Adams,Studies in English Literature 1500-1900

That'sRealms of Verse, notReams, don't worry--though among the many virtues of this broad-minded, sure-handed book is the extent of ground it commands. Matthew Reynolds provides substantial newl“.