Victorian Women Poets: Writing Against The Heart

This acclaimed book recovers and explores an important tradition of 19th-century women's poetry - from Felicia Hemans to Charlotte Mew. Angela Leighton not only discusses the work of many neglected poets (including Augusta Webster and 'Michael Field'), she also charts the development of women's poetry form the sentimentalism of Hemans and L.E.L. (Letitia Elizabeth Landon)) to the various strategies of self-displacement employed by the best of the Victorians, especially Elizabeth Browning and Christina Rossetti.

The work combines biographical material with theoretical readings of the poems, and offers new reinterpretations of some original and intriguing literature. Much of this had been by-passed or forgotten before Angela Leighton's work.
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It is impressive in scope, is highly original in its aims, and is established as the chief critical work in its field.