Beyond Arthurian Romances
This page intentionally left blank
Beyond Arthurian Romances The Reach of Victorian Medievalism Edited by Lorretta M. Holloway and Jennifer A. Palmgren
BEYOND ARTHURIAN ROMANCES Lorretta M. Holloway and Jennifer A. Palmgren, 2005. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2005 978-1-4039-6735-0 A. W. N. Pugin, Contrasts, Leicester University Press, 1992 Leicester University Press, a Continuum Imprint. The Ladies of the Raj tilting and the three vignettes from the military Ivanhoe burlesque from The Graphic Saturday, February 9, 1889 used by permission from the Illustrated London News Picture Library. The Poems of Matthew Arnold, ed. Kenneth Allott used by permission of Longmans United Kingdom. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published in 2005 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-53006-9 ISBN 978-1-4039-8116-5 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9781403981165 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Beyond Arthurian romances : the reach of Victorian medievalism / [selected by] Jennifer A. Palmgren and Lorretta M. Holloway. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. English literature 19th century History and criticism. 2. Middle Ages in literature. 3. Medievalism Great Britain History 19th century. 4. Literature, Medieval Appreciation Great Britain. 5. Medievalism in literature. I. Palmgren, Jennifer A. II. Holloway, Lorretta M. PR468.M53B495 2005 820.9 358 dc22 2004062148 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: June 2005 10987654321
Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Notes on Contributors vii ix xiii Introduction 1 Lorretta M. Holloway and Jennifer Palmgren One Standing Proof of the Degeneracy of Modern Times : Architecture, Society, and the Medievalism of A. W. N. Pugin 9 Corinna M. Wagner Two Knight, Bard, Gallant : The Troubadour as a Critique of Romanticism in Browning s Sordello 39 Britta Martens Three Charlotte Yonge s Victorian Normans in The Little Duke 53 Sarah R. Wakefield Four Five Six And the golden halls were dumb : Norse Fatalism and Mourning in Matthew Arnold s Balder Dead 73 Kim Zarins Lessons from the Medieval Convent: Adelaide Procter s A Legend of Provence 95 Christine A. Colón The Worship of Courage : William Morris s Sigurd the Volsung and Victorian Medievalism 117 Richard Frith
Seven Eight Nine vi / contents The Gallows Nightingale: Swinburne s Translations of Villon 133 Nick Freeman Counter-Medievalism: Or, Protestants Rewrite the Middle Ages 147 Miriam Elizabeth Burstein Where Medieval Romance Meets Victorian Reality: The Woman Question in William Morris s The Wood Beyond the World 169 Lori Campbell Ten The Performance of Victorian Medievalism 191 Barbara Bell Eleven What is a Man?: The Refuting of the Chivalric Ideal at the Turn of the Century 217 Sandra Martina Schwab Bibliography 233 Index 249
List of Illustrations 1.1 Pugin s Contrasted Episcopal Monuments 16 1.2 Pugin s New Church Competition 19 1.3 Pugin s Public Conduits 26 1.4 Pugin s Contrasting Towns 1840/1440 27 1.5 Pugin s Contrasting Residences for the Poor 28 10.1 Mr. West as Sir Kenneth of Scotland in The Siege of Jerusalem and Mr. C. Kemble as Ivanhoe 194 10.2 Ivanhoe Playbill, Edinburgh Theatre Royal, December 13, 1823 195 10.3 Raj Ladies Tilting 205 10.4 Cremorne 207 10.5 Guards Ivanhoe Burlesque 210
This page intentionally left blank
Acknowledgments First, we would like to acknowledge the support of both of our home institutions, Framingham State College and Saint Paul s College. Framingham State provided faculty development money that helped obtain permission to republish some of our illustrations, and Saint Paul s College granted professional leave. Neil Conrad, Larry Seilhamer (interlibrary loan librarians at Framingham State and at Saint Paul s, respectively), and Marion Slack (reference librarian at Framingham State) were instrumental to our research. All small colleges deserve and need librarians who are detectives in disguise. We are also grateful for the kind assistance and helpful advice of Maryalice Mohr (archivist and records manager at the New England Conservatory of Music). A very special thanks goes to members of the Framingham State Information Technology Team. Without Christopher Mason, Gregory Merlloni, and the late William Demers, we would not have been able to put the project together. They recognize that sometimes you just have to speak slowly and start from the very basics to help others understand the obvious. We also need to thank Edwin and Anne Palmgren for providing us with a free retreat to get the book through its final stages.
This page intentionally left blank
This book is dedicated to our students, who continue to inspire and challenge us
This page intentionally left blank
Notes on Contributors BARBARA BELL is currently Head of Performing Arts at Edge Hill College of Higher Education and has worked as an arts practitioner in Theatre-in- Education. She has published articles on The Scottish National Drama, Scottish theater, nineteenth-century theater, and contemporary playwriting. MIRIAM ELIZABETH BURSTEIN is an Assistant Professor of English at the State University of New York, College at Brockport. Her articles have appeared in Journal of Narrative Technique, Modern Philology, Victorian Literature and Culture, Huntington Library Quarterly, and the collection Silent Voices. She has recently published Narrating Women s History in Britain, 1770 1902. LORI CAMPBELL specializes in nineteenth-century British and American literature. She is currently a lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Pittsburgh where she teaches courses in literature and composition. Her publications in the fields of children s literature, Victorian literature, British literature, fantasy, folklore, and cultural studies include a recent article in Mosaic and the introduction to a new edition of Edwin A. Abbot s Flatland. CHRISTINE A. COLÓN is an Assistant Professor of English at Wheaton College in Illinois where she teaches courses on English literature and women writers. She specializes in nineteenth-century English literature and has published articles on Jane Austen, Joanna Baillie, Anne Brontë, and Wilkie Collins. NICK FREEMAN is a lecturer in nineteenth century literature at the University of the West of England. He has published work on Swinburne, Grant Allen, and Arthur Symons. He is particularly interested in literary and artistic representations of Victorian London. RICHARD FRITH recently completed his PhD at Trinity Hall, Cambridge and now works in academic publishing. His doctoral dissertation focuses on
xiv / notes on contributors the relationship between medievalism and aestheticism in the work of D. G. Rossetti, Morris, and Swinburne. He is currently planning an edition of Swinburne s early Arthurian poem Queen Yseult. BRITTA MARTENS is a lecturer in the School of English and Drama at the University of the West of England. She has published articles on Browning and is currently working on a study of Browning s poetics. She serves as the review editor for Browning Society Notes. SANDRA MARTINA SCHWAB teaches English literature at Johannes-Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany where she is currently working on her PhD on dragon slaying and gender roles. She has published articles on the motif of the dragon slayer, nationalistic socialistic propaganda, and on Anna Seghers s Seventh Cross. CORINNA WAGNER is currently a doctoral candidate in the Center for Eighteenth Century Studies at the University of York. Her current research focuses on politics, propaganda, morality, and the family in Georgian England. Her recent publications include articles on radicalism, revolutionary culture, and political scandal in British Association for Romantic Studies Bulletin and Review and in British Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies. SARAH WAKEFIELD is currently an Assistant Professor of English at Prairie View A&M University. Her research interests include eighteenth- and nineteenth-century women writers, fairy and folklore, children s literature, television, and film studies. She has most recently published in Currents in Electronic Literacy and The Journal of Popular Film and Television. KIM ZARINS is a PhD candidate at Cornell University in the Department of English specializing in medieval literature. She has written an article on John Gower s Latin Wordplay for On John Gower: Essays at the Millennium, edited by R. F. Yeager (expected date of publication, 2006).