The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Poetry and Poetic Theory
  • Publication Date: August 17, 1999
  • ISBN: 9781551111001 / 1551111004
  • 1496 pages; 7¾" x 9¼"

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The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Poetry and Poetic Theory

  • Publication Date: August 17, 1999
  • ISBN: 9781551111001 / 1551111004
  • 1496 pages; 7¾" x 9¼"

The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Poetry and Poetic Theory is the most comprehensive collection of poetry from the period ever published. Included are generous selections from the work of all major poets, and a representation of the work of virtually every poet of significance, from Thomas Ashe at the beginning of the era to Charlotte Mew at its end. The work of Victorian women poets features very prominently, with extensive selections not only from canonical poets such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Rossetti, but also from poets such as Augusta Webster for which high claims have recently been made by critics. The anthology reflects (and will contribute to) the ongoing reassessment of the canon that is central to English Studies today; in all, sixty-six poets are represented.

The editors have included complete works wherever feasible—including the complete texts of Tennyson’s In Memoriam and of a number of other long poems. A headnote by the editors introduces the work of each poet, and each selection has been newly annotated.

The inclusion of twenty-five selections of the poetic theory from the period is an important feature rounding out the anthology.

This anthology is also available in a concise edition.

Comments

“What we have needed has been the Victorian poetic texts, by many writers—and here they are, splendidly assembled! Thank you.” — William N. Rogers, San Diego State University

“I’m excited about the appearance of this comprehensive anthology—especially about its inclusion of so many full-text long poems.” — Peter W. Sinnema, University of Alberta

“A long overdue collection that balances representative and canonical works with traditionally under-represented ones.” — Barbara Gates, University of Delaware

POETRY

Anonymous

  • A New Song on the Birth of the Prince of Wales

Ashe, Thomas (1770-1835)

  • Corpse-Bearing
    To Two Bereaved

Landor, Walter Savage (1775-1864)

  • For An Epitaph At Fiesole
    Ianthe Leaves
    Dying Speech of an Old Philosopher
    Death’s Language
    Her Name
    A Foreign Ruler

Clare, John (1793-1864)

  • “I Am”
    An Invite to Eternity
    The Old Year
    The Yellowhammer
    Sonnet: “I Am”
    Stanzas “The passing of a dream”
    “There is a charm in Solitude that cheers”
    Stanzas “Black absence hides upon the past”
    The Winters Spring
    An Anecdote of Love
    To Miss B.
    “The thunder mutters louder…”

Hemans, Felicia (1793-1835)

  • The Suloite Mother
    The Lady of The Castle
    To Wordsworth
    Casabianca
    Properzia Rossi
    The Memorial Pillar
    The Grave of a Poetess
    The Image In Lava
    The Indian With His Dead Child
    The Rock of Cader Idris

Henry, James

  • “Two hundred men and eighteen killed … ”

Hood, Thomas (1799-1845)

  • The Song of the Shirt

Barnes, William (1801-1886)

  • Uncle an’ Aunt
    Polly Be-En Upzides Wi’ Tom
    The Vaïces that Be Gone
    Childhood
    The Turnstile
    Jay A-Pass’d

Landon, Letitia .E. (1802-1838)

  • from The Improvisatrice
    • Advertisement
      Sappho’s Song
  • Erinna
    “Preface” to The Venetian Bracelet, The Lost Pleiad, A History of the Lyre, and Other Poems
    The Nameless Grave
    The Factory
    Carthage
    Felicia Hemans
    Rydal Water and Grasmere Lake
    Infanticide in Madagascar

R.E. Egerton Warburton (1804-1891)

  • Past and Present

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

  • The Romaunt of the Page
    Lady Geraldine’s Courtship
    The Dead Pan
    The Cry of the Children
    A Man’s Requirements
    Sonnets From the Portuguese
    • III
      XXII
      XXIX
      XLIII
  • The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point
    Aurora Leigh
    • 1st Book
      2nd Book
      5th Book
  • A Curse for a Nation (Prologue)
    A Musical Instrument

Frederick Tennyson (1807-1898)

  • Old Age

Caroline Norton (1808-1877)

  • from Voice From the Factories
    The Creole Girl
    The Poet’s Choice
    Sonnet IV
    Sonnet VIII (To My Books)
    Sonnet XI The Weaver
    Edward Fitzgerald
    Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

Tennyson, Alfred (1809-1892)

  • Mariana
    Supposed Confessions of a Second-Rate Sensitive Mind
    The Poet
    The Poet’s Mind
    The Mystic
    The Kraken
    The Lady of Shalott
    To ——. With the following Poem [Palace of Art]
    The Palace of Art
    The Hesperides
    The Lotos-Eaters (107)
    The Two Voices
    St Simeon Stylites
    Ulysses
    Tiresias
    The Epic [Morte d’Arthur]
    Morte d’Arthur
    “Break, break, break”
    Locksley Hall
    The Vision of Sin
    In Memoriam A.H.H. (33)
    The Charge of the Light Brigade
    Maud
    Tithonus
    The Higher Pantheism
    “Flower in the crannied wall”
    Crossing the Bar
    Idylls of the King
    The Coming of Arthur
    Lancelot and Elaine

Browning, Robert (1812-1889)

  • My Last Duchess
    Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister
    Johannes Agricola in Meditation
    Porphyria’s Lover
    Pictor Ignotus
    the Lost Leader
    The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church
    The Laboratory
    Love Among the Ruins
    Fra Lippo Lippi
    A Toccata of Galuppi’s
    By the Fire-Side
    An Epistle Containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician
    ”Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”
    The Statue and the Bust
    How It Strikes a Contemporary
    The Last Ride Together
    Bishop Blougram’s Apology
    Andrea del Sarto
    Old Pictures in Florence
    In a Balcony
    Saul
    Cleon
    Two in the Campagna
    A Grammarian’s Funeral
    Dîs Aliter Visum or Le Byron de Nos Jours
    Abt Vogler
    Rabbi Ben Ezra
    Caliban Upon Setebos; or, Natural Theology in the Island
    The Ring and the Book
    The Ring and the Book: Book I
    • Count Guido Franceschini: Book V
      Pompilia: Book VI
      Guido: Book XI
  • Prologue (to Asolando)
    Development

Lear, Edward (1812-1888)

  • The Owl and the Pussycat
    The Dong with a Luminous Nose
    How Pleasant to Know Mr. Lear

Brontë, Charlotte (1816-1855)

  • The Missionary
    Master and Pupil
    On the Death of Emily Jane Brontë
    On the Death of Anne Brontë
    Reason
    “The house was still—the room was still”
    The Lonely Lady
    “Is this my tomb, this humble stone”
    “Obscure and little seem my way”

Brontë, Emily Jane (1818-1848)

  • “Riches I hold in light esteem”
    To Imagination
    Plead For Me
    Remembrance
    The Prisoner
    “No coward soul is mine”
    Stanzas—“Often rebuked, yet always back returning”
    A Farewell to Alexandria
    “Long neglect has worn away”
    “The night is darkening round me”
    “What winter floods, what showers of spring”
    “She dried her tears, and they did smile”

Cook, Eliza (1818-1889)

  • Lines
    The Waters
    The Ploughshare of Old England
    The Old Arm-Chair
    Song of the Red Indian
    Song of The Ugly Maiden
    My Old Straw Hat
    Lines Written for the Sheffield Mechanics Exhibition, 1846
    A Song For The Workers
    My Ladye Love

Clough, Arthur Hugh (1819-1861)

  • Duty—that’s to say complying
    Qui Laborat, Orat
    The Latest Decalogue
    “Say not the struggle nought availeth”
    Amours de Voyage

Eliot, George (1819-1880)

  • “O, May I Join the Choir Invisible”
    The Spanish Gypsy
    • Book I
      Book III
  • Armgart
    Brother and Sister Sonnets
    • I
      II
      III
      IV
      V
      VI
      VII
      VIII
      IX
      X

Brontë, Anne (1820-1849)

  • A Fragment—“Maiden, thou wert thoughtless once”
    Lines Written at Thorp Green
    “My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring”
    A Word to the Calvinists
    The Captive Dove
    Views of Life
    Self-Communion
    The Bluebell
    Dreams
    A Voice from the Dungeon

Ingelow, Jean (1820-1897)

  • Supper At The Mill
    Remonstrance
    A Lily And A Lute
    Gladys And Her Island
    On The Borders of Cannock Chase

Greenwell, Dora (1821-1882)

  • The Singer
    The Railway Station
    The Picture and the Scroll
    The Broken Chain
    Old Letters
    To Elizabeth Barrett Browning in 1851
    To Elizabeth Barrett Browning in 1861
    One Flower
    A Scherzo
    A Song to Call to Remembrance

Speranza (Lady Wilde) (1821?-1896)

  • The Voice of the Poor
    A Remonstrance
    A Lament For the Potato
    Fatality
    Corinne’s Last Love-Song
    Tristan and Isolde
    The Poet’s Destiny
    An Appeal to Ireland

Arnold, Matthew (1822-1888)

  • To a Gipsy Child by the Sea-Shore
    The Strayed Reveller
    Resignation
    The Forsaken Merman
    To Marguerite—Continued
    Stanzas in Memory of the Author of “Obermann”
    Empedocles on Etna
    Memorial Verses
    Dover Beach
    The Buried Life
    Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse
    The Scholar-Gipsy
    Philomela
    Thyrsis

Patmore, Coventry (1823-1896)

  • The Toys
    Magna est Veritas
    The Angel in the House

Allingham, William (1824-1889)

  • The Fairies
    “Four Ducks on a Pond”
    Writing
    Express

Dobell, Sydney (1824-1874)

  • The Botanist’s Vision
    To the Authoress of “Aurora Leigh”
    Perhaps
    Two Sonnets on the Death of Prince Albert

MacDonald, George (1824-1905)

  • Professor Noctutus
    No End of No-Story

Procter, Adelaide Anne (1825-1864)

  • The Cradle Song of the Poor
    Incompleteness
    My Picture Gallery
    An Appeal
    The Jubilee of 1850
    Homeless
    A Woman’s Question
    A Woman’s Answer
    A Woman’s Last Word
    Envy
    A Legend of Provence
    Philip and Mildred

Collins, Mortimer

  • Lotos Eating

Bigg, J. Stantyon (1828-1865)

  • An Irish Picture

Massey, Gerald (1828-1907)

  • Hope On, Hope Ever
    The Cry of the Unemployed
    A Song in the City
    “As proper mode of quenching legal lust…”
    Womankind

Meredith, George (1838-1909)

  • Modern Love
    Lucifer in Starlight

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel (1828-1882)

  • The Blessed Damozel
    My Sister’s Sleep
    Jenny
    The Portrait
    The Woodspurge
    The Ballad of Dead Ladies
    A Last Confession
    The Sea-Limits
    Found
    At the Sunrise in 1848
    The House of Life: A Sonnet Sequence
    • “A Sonnet is a moment’s monument,—”
      Nuptial Sleep
      The Portrait
      Silent Noon
      Willowwood
      The Soul’s Sphere
      The Landmark
      Autumn Idleness
      The Hill Summit
      Old and New Art
      Soul’s Beauty
      Body’s Beauty
      A Superscription
      The One Hope

Munby, Arthur (1828-1910)

  • The Serving Maid
    Post Mortem
    A Husband’s Episodes
    T’ Runawaa Lass
    “Followers Not Allowed”
    Woman’s Rights

Siddal, Elizabeth (1829-1862)

  • The Lust of the Eyes
    Worn Out
    At Last
    Love and Hate

Brown, T.E. (1830-1870)

  • A Sermon at Clevedon

Rossetti, Christina (1830-1894)

  • Goblin Market
    A Birthday
    After Death
    An Apple Gathering
    Echo
    “No, Thank you, John”
    Song
    Uphill
    A Better Resurrection
    “The Iniquity of the Fathers Upon the Children”
    Monna Innominata 1 – 14
    “For Thine Own Sake, O My God”
    In an Artist’s Studio

Carroll, Lewis (1832-1898)

  • Jabberwocky
    The Walrus and the Carpenter
    The Hunting of the Snark

Morris, William (1834-1896)

  • The Defence of Guinevere
    The Haystack in the Floods
    Riding Together
    Near Avalon
    An Apology
    A Garden by the Sea
    The End of May

Thomson, James (1834-1882)

  • The City of Dreadful Night
    E.B.B. 1861
    A Real Vision of Sin

Warren, John Leicester (Lord de Tabley) (1835-1895)

  • The Strange Parable
    A Song of Faith Forsworn
    Echoes of Hellas
    L’Envoi
    Conclusion

Braddon, Mary Elizabeth (1837-1915)

  • Queen Guinevere
    At Last
    Waiting
    Under Ground
    Waking

Swinburne, Algernon Charles (1837-1909)

  • Atalanta in Calydon
    Laus Veneris
    The Triumph of Time
    Itylus
    Anactoria
    Hymn to Proserpine
    The Leper
    Dolores
    The Garden of Proserpine
    Hertha
    A Forsaken Garden
    At A Month’s End
    Ave Atque Vale
    A Jacobite’s Farewell
    The Lake of Gaube

Webster, Augusta (1837-1894)

  • Circe
    A Castaway
    Mother and Daughter Sonnets
    • Sonnet VI – VII
      Sonnet IX
      Sonnet XII
      Sonnet XIII – XVII
  • The Wind’s Tidings In August 1870
    To-Day
    Her Memories
    A Coarse Morning
    Not To Be
    Once
    The Old Dream

Hardy, Thomas (1840-1928)

  • Hap
    Neutral Tones
    A Broken Appointment
    The Darkling Thrush
    The Self-Unseeing
    In Tenebris
    The Minute Before Meeting
    Night in the Old Home
    The Something that Saved Him
    Afterwards
    A Young Man’s Exhortation
    Snow in the Suburbs
    In a Wood

Dowden, Edward (1843-1913)

  • Burdens
    Leonardo’s “Monna Lisa”
    Europa
    Seeking God
    In a June Night

Bridges, Robert (1844-1930)

  • London Snow
    On a Dead Child

Hopkins, Gerard Manley (1844-1899)

  • The Wreck of the Deutschland
    God’s Grandeur
    The Windhover
    Pied Beauty
    Harrahing in Harvest
    The Caged Skylark
    Peace
    Felix Randal
    “As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame”
    The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo
    Spelt from Sibyl’s Leaves
    Carrion Comfort
    “No worst, there is none”
    “To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life”
    “I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day”
    “Patience, hard thing! the hard thing but to pray”
    “My own heart let me more have pity on”
    Tom’s Garland
    Harry Ploughman
    It was a hard thing to undo this knot

Lee-Hamilton, Eugene (1845-1907)

  • The Keys of the Convent
    Introduction (Picciola)
    The New Medusa
    The Raft
    To the Muse
    River Babble
    Twilight
    What the Sonnet Is
    Sunken Gold
    The Ever Young
    • I
      II
      III
  • The Mandolin

Field, Michael

  • Preface
    Drawing of Roses and Violets
    La Gioconda
    The Birth of Venus
    A Portrait
    A “Sant’ Imagine”
    The Magdalen
    A Pen-Drawing of Leda
    “Death, men say, is like a sea”
    “Ah, Eros doth not always smite”
    “Sometimes I do despatch my heart”
    An Apple-Flower
    “Solitary Death, make me thine own”
    “A curling thread”
    A Spring Morning By the Sea
    Love’rsquo;s Sour Leisure
    “It was deep April, and the morn”
    Noon
    An Aeolian Harp
    Cyclamens

Meynell, Alice (1847-1922)

  • A Letter from a Girl to Her Own Old Age
    In February
    • A Poet’s Fancies
      • The Love of Narcissus
        To Any Poet
        Unlikned
  • The Shepherdess
    Parentage
    Cradle-Song at Twilight
    In Manchester Square
    Maternity
    A Study
    • Before Light
      About Noon
      At Twilight
  • A Father of Women
    The Threshing Machine
    Reflections
    • (I) In Ireland
      (II) In “Othello”
      (III) In Two Poets

Dolben, Digby Mackworth (1848-1867)

  • A Song
    A Poem Without A Name
    After Reading Aeschylus
    Good Friday
    Sister Death
    Pro Castitate

Henley, William Ernest (1849-1903)

  • Waiting

Mallock, William H. (1849-1923)

  • Christmas Thoughts, by a Modern Thinker

Stevenson, Robert Louis (1850-1894)

  • Bed in Summer
    Travel
    The Land of Counterpane
    The Land of Story-books
    Requiem
    The Celestial Surgeon
    “I have trod the upward and the downward slope”
    “So live, so love, so use that fragile hour”
    “I saw red evening through the rain”

Wilde, Oscar (1854-1900)

  • Requiescat
    Hélas!
    Impressions

    • le jardin
      la mer
  • Symphony in Yellow

Davidson, John (1857-1909)

  • Thirty Bob a Week
    A Ballad of a Nun
    A Ballad in Blank Verse
    A Northern Suburb
    A Woman and Her Son
    Yuletide

Robinson, A. Mary F. (1857-1944)

  • The Scape-Goat
    The Idea
    Darwinism
    An Orchard at Avignon
    Love, Death, and Art
    Art and Life
    Song
    Neurasthenia
    To My Muse

Stephen, J.K. (1859-1907)

  • In the Backs

Thompson, Francis (1859-1907)

  • The Hound of Heaven

Coleridge, Mary (1861-1907)

  • IX — The Other Side Of A Mirror
    XIV — Regina
    XXVII — Winged Words
    LX — Marriage
    LXIII — In Dispraise of the Moon
    LXXVI — The White Women
    XCVII — The Fire Lamp
    CXIV — To the writer of a poem on a bridge
    CXCI — Tar Ublia Chi Bien Eima
    CCVI — A Clever Woman

Levy, Amy (1861-1889)

  • Xantippe
    Felo De Se
    To a Dead Poet
    A Minor Poet
    Magdalen
    A London Plane-Tree
    London Poets
    On The Threshold
    In The Black Forest
    To Vernon Lee
    To E.

Kipling, Rudyard (1865-1889)

  • Gentlemen-Rankers
    In the Neolithic Age
    Recessional
    The White Man’s Burden
    If

Gray, John

  • The Barber
    Poem

Dowson, Ernest (1867-1900)

  • Nuns of the Perpetual Adoration
    Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae
    Villanelle of Sunset
    To One in Bedlam
    Benedictio Domini
    Ad Manus Puellae
    Terre Promise
    Spleen
    Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam

Johnson, Lionel (1867-1902)

  • The Dark Angel
    Summer Storm
    Dead
    The End
    Nihilism
    The Darkness
    In a Workhouse
    Bagley Wood
    The Destroyer of a Soul
    The Precept of Silence
    A Proselyte

Mew, Charlotte (1869-1909)

  • The Farmer’s Bride
    The Fête
    In Nunhead Cemetery
    Ken
    Madeleine In Church
    The Road To Kérity
    I Have Been Through The Gates
    The Cenotaph
    V. R. I.
    • i. January 22nd, 1901
      ii. January 2nd, 1901

POETIC THEORY

Fox, William Johnson (1786-1864)

  • Tennyson — Poems, Chiefly Lyrical — 1830 Pub. 1831

Hallam, Arthur Henry (1811-1833)

  • On some of the Characteristics of Modern Poetry and on the Lyrical Poems of Alfred Tennyson Pub. 1831

Landon, Letitia E. (1802-1838)

  • On the Ancient and Modern Influence of Poetry Pub. 1832

Mill, John Stuart (1806-1873)

  • “What is poetry?”
    “Two kinds of poetry” Pub. January and October 1833

Taylor, Sir Henry (1800-1886)

  • Preface to Philip Van Artevelde Pub. 1834

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel (1828-1882)

  • Hand and Soul Pub. 1850

Browning, Robert (1812-1889)

  • An Essay on Percy Bysshe Shelley Pub. 1851

Clough, Arthur Hugh

  • Recent English Poetry: A Review of Several Volumes of Poems by Alexander Smith, Mathew Arnold, and others

Arnold, Matthew (1822-1888)

  • Preface to the 1853 Edition of Poems Pub. 1853

Massey, Gerald (1828-1907)

  • Preface to the Third Edition of Babe Christabel Pub. 1854

Ruskin, John (1819-1900)

  • Of the Pathetic Fallacy Pub. 1856

Arnold, Matthew (1822-1888)

  • The Function of Criticism at the Present Time Pub. 1864

Bagehot, Walter (1826-1877)

  • Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning; or, Pure, Ornate, and Grotesque Art in English Poetry Pub. 1864

Morley, John

  • Mr. Swinburne’s New Poems: Poems and Ballards

Dallas, Eneas Sweetland (1828-1879)

  • The Secrecy of Art Pub. 1888

Buchanan, Robert (1841-1901)

  • The Fleshly School of Poetry: Mr. D.G. Rossetti Pub. 1871

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel (1828-1882)

  • The Stealthy School Of Criticism Pub. 1871

Swinburne, Algernon Charles (1837-1909)

  • Under The Microscope Pub. 1872

Pater, Walter (1839-1890)

  • Preface to The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry Pub. 1873

Hopkins, Gerard Manley (1844-1889)

  • Author’s Preface Pub. 1883

Levy, Amy

  • James Thompson: A Minor Poet

Whistler, James McNeill (1834-1903)

  • Ten O’Clock Pub. 1890

Morris, William

  • Of the Origins of Ornamental Art

Wilde, Oscar (1854-1900)

  • The Critic as Artist Pub. 1890

Symons, Arthur (1865-1945)

  • The Decadent Movement in Literature Pub. 1893
    The Symbolist Movement In Literature Pub. 1899

Meynell, Alice

  • Tennyson
    Robert Browning
    The Rhythm of Life

Robins, Elizabeth

  • Woman’s Secret

Hardy, Thomas (1840-1928)

  • Apology Pub. 1922

INDEXES

Index of First Lines
Index of Authors and Titles

The recent work of Thomas J. Collins, Professor of English at the University of Western Ontario, includes Browning: The Poems, 2 vols., ed. with John Pettigrew (Penguin, 3rd ed. 1996), and A Concordance to the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning, 7 vols., ed. with R.J. Shroyer (AMS Press, 1996).

Vivienne J. Rundle, Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Calgary, has also written extensively on Victorian literature.