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Palgrave Macmillan
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British Aestheticism and the Urban Working Classes, 1870-1900

Beauty for the People

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  • © 2006

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

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About this book

This cultural study reveals the interdependence between British Aestheticism and late-Victorian social-reform movements. Following their mentor John Ruskin who believed in art's power to civilize the poor, cultural philanthropists promulgated a Religion of Beauty as they advocated practical schemes for tenement reform, university-settlement education, Sunday museum opening, and High Anglican revival. Although subject to novelist's ambivalent, even satirical, representations, missionary aesthetes nevertheless constituted an influential social network, imbuing fin-de-siecle artistic communities with political purpose and political lobbies with aesthetic sensibility.

Reviews

'...this book signals the rich possibilities for future studies in the field as it contributes to a continuing reassessment of the Aesthetic Movement.' - Morna O'Neill, Visual Culture

About the author

DIANA MALTZ is an Associate Professor of English Literature at Southern Oregon University, USA.

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