The New Woman sought vast improvements in Victorian culture that would enlarge educational, professional, and domestic opportunities. Although New Women resist ready classification or appraisal as a monolithic body, they tended to share many of the same beliefs and objectives aimed at improving female conditions. While novels about the iconoclastic New Woman have garnered much interest in recent decades, poetry from the cultural and literary figure has received considerably less attention. Yet the very issues that propelled New Woman fiction are integral to the poetry of the fin de siècle. This book – the first in-depth account on the subject – enriches our knowledge of exceptionally gifted writers, including Mathilde Blind, M. E. Coleridge, Olive Custance, and Edith Nesbit. It focuses on their long-neglected British verse, analyzing its treatment of crucial matters on both the personal and public level to provide the attention the poetry so richly deserves.
Author(s): Patricia Murphy
Series: Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 278
City: Cham
Acknowledgments
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction: Many Voices, Many Issues
A Sketch of the New Woman
Dying Love
Vagaries of Love
Unsettling Misconceptions
Eve’s Supposed Legacy
Musings on Motherhood
Social Duty
Chapter Previews
Chapter 2: The Vagaries of Marriage
Nesbit’s Critiques
Constraint
Estrangement
Infidelity
Dismaying Progression
Chapter 3: The Workings of Desire
Linguistic Fluctuations
Ambiguity Resolved?
Secretive Passion
Varied Strategies
Sea of Desire
Chapter 4: Social Responsibility for the Destitute
Prescriptions for the Victorian Sonnet
Self-Absorption Maligned
Human Community
Disturbing Deprivation
Other Voices Assail Poverty
Failures of the Church
Chapter 5: Grim Stories of the ‘Fallen Woman’
A Contextual Framework
Blind’s Tales of the Discarded
No Maternal Protection
Unforgiven
Dead or Alive?
Unabated Agony
Chapter 6: Poets on Poetry
Poetic Pioneers
Poetic Challenges
Poetic Responsibility
Seeking the Heights
Inspiration and Its Discontents
Fulfilling a Duty
Chapter 7: The Promise of London
A Fitting Correspondence
Significance of the Omnibus
Creativity and the City
Country Versus City
Endless Movement
London’s Darker Side
Watson/Tomson Verses
Chapter 8: Conclusion: Speculating on the Future
Final Thoughts
Works Cited
Index
