Cast in the shadow of the soldier-poets of the First World War,
Victorian war poets have often been disparaged as «armchair
patriots» glorifying military action in an unthinking fashion.
Challenging this long-standing assumption, The Crimean War in
Victorian Poetry considers the evolution of the figure of the
homefront poet and explores the daunting task of representing war from
a civilian perspective. By virtue of the medium of modern reportage,
the Crimean War (1854-1856) witnessed the inauguration of the civilian
spectatorship of distant suffering, provoking a heated debate over the
concept of the war poet and the function of war poetry during moments
of national crisis. Confronted with news of soldiers’ hardships and
of the distress caused by the government’s mismanagement of war, the
so-called armchair poet sought ways of addressing the problem of pain
and adversity from a distance and of engaging with the politics of war
by composing lines of verse at home. This is the first book-length
study to examine the predicaments and achievements of mid-Victorian
war poets. It provides historically nuanced readings of how a diverse
group of British poets – ranging from the Poet Laureate Alfred, Lord
Tennyson to the highly acclaimed female poet Louisa Stuart Costello
– fought a literary war as they reworked the established traditions
of war poetry and experimented with poetic forms in response to news
of distant combat.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781788741804
Publisert
2021
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
Peter Lang Ltd, International Academic Publishers
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter