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Nineteenth-Century Verse and Technology

Machines of Meter

Palgrave Macmillan

Authors:

  • Repositions thinking about nineteenth-century meter and a variety of texts and practices associated with it
  • Examines how both writing in meter and about it participates in the nineteenth century’s “culture of machines”
  • Takes a more inclusive view of meter’s engagement with the nineteenth century’s systems of mechanization and attendant technologies
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

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Table of contents (6 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xv
  2. Introduction

    • Jason David Hall
    Pages 1-13
  3. Measurement, Temporality, Abstraction

    • Jason David Hall
    Pages 15-59
  4. Meter Manufactories

    • Jason David Hall
    Pages 61-110
  5. Automaton Versifiers

    • Jason David Hall
    Pages 111-163
  6. The Automatic Flow of Verse

    • Jason David Hall
    Pages 165-206
  7. Instrumental Prosody

    • Jason David Hall
    Pages 207-253
  8. Back Matter

    Pages 255-288

About this book

This book repositions thinking about rhythm, meter and versification during the “Mechanical Age.” Cutting across disciplinary boundaries, the book examines the rhythmical workings of poems alongside not only Victorian theories of prosody and poetics but also contemporary thinking about labor practices, pedagogical procedures, scientific experiments, and technological innovations. By offering an exploded definition of meter—one that extends beyond conventional foot-based scansion—this book explicates the conceptual and, at times, material exchanges between poetic meter and machine culture. The machines of meter include mid-century theories of abstraction and technologies of smoothness and even spacing; a deeply influential, though rarely credited, system of metrical manufacture; verse produced by a Victorian automaton; the mechanics of the human body and mind and the meters that issued from them; and the promise of scientific machines to resolve metrical dilemmas once and forall.

Reviews

“Hall’s book is well-documented and deserves consideration proportionate to its theoretical undertaking. It also provides compelling socio-historical evidence of the relation between prosodic education and mechanized serial production in the nineteenth century.” (John C. Murray, The British Society for Literature and Science, bsls.ac.uk, May, 2018)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Department of English, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom

    Jason David Hall

About the author

Jason David Hall is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Exeter, UK. His books include Seamus Heaney: Poet, Critic, Translator (2007), Seamus Heaney’s Rhythmic Contract (2009), Meter Matters: Verse Cultures of the Long Nineteenth Century (2011), and Decadent Poetics: Literature and Form at the British Fin de Siècle (2013). His edition of Wilkie Collins’s Jezebel’s Daughter was published in 2016.

Bibliographic Information

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access