
The Central Self
A Study in Romantic and Victorian Imagination
Patricia M. Ball(Author)
Bloomsbury Academic (Publisher)
Published on 7. November 2013
Book
Hardback
236 pages
978-1-4725-1430-1 (ISBN)
Description
In this closely argued book Dr Ball is concerned to analyse the imaginative process of self-understanding which emerged as a characteristic feature of English Romantic poetry and, acquiring fresh creative force in the Victorian period, has been transmitted to our own times as a determining principle of the contemporary imagination. Dr Ball relates her discussion to the distinction between the poet speaking directly in his own voice and the impulse to dramatised utterance - the two modes of poetic expression conveniently summed up in Keats's contrasting terms 'egotistical sublime' and 'chameleon'. She shows how these 'polar' tendencies co-exist fruitfully in the work of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats and from this standpoint supplies a coherent appreciation of the little-regarded plays written by these poets. Turning to Victorian critics and poets Dr Ball considers how the Romantic inheritance fared at their hands. She sees in the poets, notably Tennyson, Arnold, Browning, and Hopkins, a vital link by which the Romantic commitment to the agency of self-consciousness has been carried forward to the twentieth century and concludes with a brief sketch of the creative role of self-exploration in T. S. Eliot and W. B. Yeats.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
546 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4725-1430-1 (9781472514301)
DOI
CBID181265
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
01/2014
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Academic
€155.99
Available for download
Person
Patricia M. Ball was a Lecturer in English at the University of Leeds.
Content
Abbreviations
Introduction
I The Poetical Character: Aspects of the Romantic View
II. The Romantics as Dramatists
III Egotistical and Chameleon: Wordsworth and Coleridge
IV Egotistical and Chameleon: Byron, Shelley and Keats
V Sincerity: A Victorian Criterion
VI Inheriting Pegasus: Tennyson, Arnold and Browning
VII Conclusions: Masks and Anti-masks
Index
Introduction
I The Poetical Character: Aspects of the Romantic View
II. The Romantics as Dramatists
III Egotistical and Chameleon: Wordsworth and Coleridge
IV Egotistical and Chameleon: Byron, Shelley and Keats
V Sincerity: A Victorian Criterion
VI Inheriting Pegasus: Tennyson, Arnold and Browning
VII Conclusions: Masks and Anti-masks
Index