The Victorian Sage

Analysis of the philosophy and rhetoric in the works of Carlyle, Disraeli, Eliot, Newman, Arnold, and Hardy.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

A NEW COMPANION TO VICTORIAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE The Victorian period was a time of rapid cultural change, which resulted in a huge and varied literary output. A New Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture offers experienced guidance to the literature of nineteenth-century Britain and its social and historical context. This revised and expanded edition comprises contributions from over 30 leading scholars who, approaching the Victorian epoch from different positions and traditions, delve into the unruly complexities of the Victorian imagination. Divided into five parts, this new Companion surveys seven decades of history before examining the key phases in a Victorian life, the leading professions and walks of life, the major literary genres, the way Victorians defined their persons, homes, and national identity, and how recent “neo-Victorian” developments in contemporary culture reconfigure the sense we make of the past today. Important topics such as sexuality, denominational faith, social class, and global empire inform each chapter’s approach. Each chapter provides a comprehensive bibliography of established and emerging scholarship.

Acclaimed biography of the pioneer of modern electrical theory featuring a new preface by author. "He was a man who often was incapable of conducting himself properly in the most elementary social interactions. His only continuing contacts with women were limited to his mother, nieces, and housekeepers. He was a man who knew the power of money and desired it, but refused to work for it, preferring to live off the sweat of his family and long-suffering friends, whom he often insulted even as they paid his bills."—Excerpt from the book This, then, was Oliver Heaviside, a pioneer of modern electrical theory. Born into a low social class of Victorian England, Heaviside made advances in mathematics by introducing the operational calculus; in physics, where he formulated the modern-day expressions of Maxwell's Laws of electromagnetism; and in electrical engineering, through his duplex equations. With a new preface by the author, this acclaimed biography will appeal to historians of technology and science, as well as to scientists and engineers who wish to learn more about this remarkable man.

In considering the responses of Carlyle, Emerson, Melville, and Conrad to Montaigne and to one another, this work focuses on the fundamental contradiction between wisdom and art and demonstrates that this contradiction impels the writing of the Essais and generates the Victorian sage's antic speculations.

aAnd then the hoary sage came fortha]and smote the ground with wooden staffa]and bade the assembly harken.a The Victorian sage was a wise and well-informed man who wrote compelling prose as teacher, preacher, and prophet. He wanted to lead his people out of the wilderness, and he believed earnestly that he had the means by which to do it. In tumultuous and uncertain times, he worked long and hard to be heard. At the end of his life, he looked back to ask with some dismay whether anyone had heard at all. At times he was gravely disappointed, even bitter, as he convinced himself that the people who needed him most had neither listened nor learned. In brighter moments he was certain his work was not done in vain. Performing as sage were Macaulay, Carlyle, Newman, Mill, Ruskin, Arnold, Darwin, Huxley, Morris, and Pater. Others of lesser note were Spencer, Stephen, Butler, and Stevenson.

How were the genres of literature changed by new methods of serialization and publishing? How did a widespread culture of performance emerge in the period to shape as well as to be shaped by the novel and poetry? David Amigoni draws on the most recent critical approaches to the novel, Victorian melodrama and poetry to answer these and other questions. The work of Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Oscar Wilde, Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, Christina Rossetti, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Carlyle and Mathew Arnold are explored in relation to ideas about fiction, journalism, drama, poetry, the New Woman, gothic, horror and the Victorian stage.