Epic and Empire in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture, Series Number 52)

In the nineteenth century, epic poetry in the Homeric style was widely seen as an ancient and anachronistic genre, yet Victorian authors worked to recreate it for the modern world. Simon Dentith explores the relationship between epic and the evolution of Britain's national identity in the nineteenth century up to the apparent demise of all notions of heroic warfare in the catastrophe of the First World War. Paradoxically, writers found equivalents of the societies which produced Homeric or Northern epics not in Europe, but on the margins of empire and among its subject peoples. Dentith considers the implications of the status of epic for a range of nineteenth-century writers, including Walter Scott, Matthew Arnold, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, William Morris and Rudyard Kipling. He also considers the relationship between epic poetry and the novel and discusses late nineteenth-century adventure novels, concluding with a brief survey of epic in the twentieth century. Cover 1 Half-title 3 Series-title 4 Title 5 Copyright 6 Contents 7 Acknowledgements 9 Introduction 11 Epic and modernity 14 The entailments of epic primitivism 20 Epic and novel, and a generic map of the world 23 Chapter 1 Homer, Ossian and Modernity 26 The Homeric question 26 Ossian and epic primitivism 33 Chapter 2 Walter Scott and Heroic Minstrelsy 36 The National Muse in its cradle 36 The manufacture of modern antiques 46 Chapter 3 Epic Translation and the National Ballad Metre 58 Macaulay, Maginn and the national ballad metre 58 Newman and Arnold on Homeric translation 60 The geography of the national ballad tradition 68 Chapter 4 The Matter of Britain and the Search for a National Epic 74 Carlyle and the idea of a national epic 74 The sources of a primary epic for Britain 79 Writing a national epic: Tennyson vs. Morris 82 Chapter 5 'As Flat as Fleet Street': Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Matthew Arnold and George Eliot on Epic and Modernity 94 Epic and contemporaneity 98 Aurora Leigh as epic poem 104 The transformation of epic 107 Chapter 6 Mapping Epic and Novel 115 Hegel on epic: totality, nation and modernity 116 Epic, novel, modernity 121 Epic, novel and nationality 125 Conclusion 134 Chapter 7 Epic and the Imperial Theme 137 Empire and atavism 137 In search of the imperial epic 148 Chapter 8 Kipling, Bard of Empire 160 Kipling the modern bard 160 Kipling and the ballad 168 The Barrack-Room Ballads 173 High-minded kipling 178 Chapter 9 Epic and the Subject Peoples of Empire 185 Irish and Indian epic revived 185 Homer anthropologised 190 The adventure novel 200 Chapter 10 Coda: Some Homeric Futures 206 Milman Parry and the resolution of the Homeric controversy 206 Parry, Doughty, Lawrence: the epic of Arabia 208 A Zulu epic 215 Epic, novel and fantasy 218 Epic and modernity 221 Notes 229 Introduction 229 Chapter 1. Homer, Ossian and modernity 230 Chapter 2. Walter Scott and heroic minstrelsy 231 Chapter 3. Epic translation and the national ballad metre 232 Chapter 4. The matter of Britain and the search for a national epic 233 Chapter 5. 'As flat as Fleet Street': Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Matthew Arnold and George Eliot on epic and 235 Chapter 6. Mapping epic and novel 235 Chapter 7. Epic and the imperial theme 236 Chapter 8. Kipling, bard of empire 237 Chapter 9. Epic and the subject peoples of empire 238 Chapter 10. Coda: Some Homeric futures 239 Bibliography 241 Index 251 "Simon Dentith explores the relationship between epic and the evolution of Britain's national identity in the nineteenth century up to the apparent demise of all notions of heroic warfare in the catastrophe of the First World War. Dentith considers the implications of the status of epic for a range of nineteenth-century writers, including Walter Scott, Matthew Arnold, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, William Morris and Rudyard Kipling. He also considers the relationship between epic poetry and the novel and discusses late nineteenth-century adventure novels, concluding with a brief survey of epic in the twentieth century."--Jacket Epic poetry in the Homeric style was widely seen as an ancient and anachronistic genre, yet Victorian authors worked to recreate it for the modern world. Simon Dentith explores the relationship between epic and the British national identity in the works of Scott, Arnold, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Morris and Kipling The Homeric question was set in train by the English traveller Robert Wood, whose 1769 Essay on the Original Genius and Writings of Homer initiated over two centuries of debate about the poet.