Beyond Arthurian Romances

1. Front Matter

   Pages I-XIV

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Lorretta M. Holloway, Jennifer Palmgren

   Pages 1-8

3. Standing Proof of the Degeneracy of Modern Times”: Architecture, Society, and the Medievalism of A. W. N. Pugin

   • Corinna M. Wagner

   Pages 9-37

4. “Knight, Bard, Gallant”: The Troubadour as a Critique of Romanticism in Browning’s Sordello

   • Britta Martens

   Pages 39-51

5. Charlotte Yonge’s Victorian Normans in The Little Duke

   • Sarah R. Wakefield

   Pages 53-71

6. “And the golden halls were dumb”: Norse Fatalism and Mourning in Matthew Arnold’s Balder Dead

   • Kim Zarins

   Pages 73-94

7. Lessons from the Medieval Convent: Adelaide Procter’s “A Legend of Provence”

   • Christine A. Colón

   Pages 95-115

8. “The Worship of Courage”: William Morris’s Sigurd the Volsung and Victorian Medievalism

   • Richard Frith

   Pages 117-132

9. The Gallows Nightingale: Swinburne’s Translations of Villon

   • Nick Freeman

   Pages 133-146

10. Counter-Medievalism: Or, Protestants Rewrite the Middle Ages

    • Miriam Elizabeth Burstein

    Pages 147-168

11. Where Medieval Romance Meets Victorian Reality: The “Woman Question” in William Morris’s The Wood Beyond the World

    • Lori Campbell

    Pages 169-190

12. The Performance of Victorian Medievalism

    • Barbara Bell

    Pages 191-216

13. What is a Man?: The Refuting of the Chivalric Ideal at the Turn of the Century

    • Sandra Martina Schwab

    Pages 217-231

14. Back Matter

    Pages 233-252

    PDF

Leaving the traditional focus on Arthurian romance and Gothic tales, the essays in this collection address how the Victorians looked back to the Middle Ages to create a sense of authority for their own ideas in areas such as art, religion, gender expectations, and social services. This book will interest specialists in the Victorian period from various fields and will also be a welcome addition to any library serving substantial humanities divisions. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of the essays, this collection would be useful in a wide range of humanities classes beyond the traditional literature class.

• critique
• culture
• English literature
• gender
• Middle Ages
• Renaissance
• Tradition
• British and Irish Literature

'Comprehensive in scope and specific in detail, there is much to interest scholar and lay reader, specialist and generalist, in the themes and subjects covered by this book.' - The Journal of William Morris Studies

LORRETTA M. HOLLOWAY is Assistant Professor of English specializing in Victorian Literature at Framingham State College in Massachusetts, USA. Her publications include essays on academic life in The Centennial Review and Alma Mater: Narratives of Motherwork and the Academic Culture.

JENNIFER A. PALMGREN is Assistant Professor of English specializing in Medieval Literature at Saint Paul's College in Virginia, USA. She is also Director of the General Studies Program at the college.

Policies and ethics