Cotsell, Michael

English Literature and the Wider World : Creditable Warriors 1830-1877

Discussing the period from the impact of Reform to the rise of Disraelian imperialism, this volume assesses writers' relations to British expansionism and the alternative of a growing Europeanism. Among the topics considered are the reevalution of Romantic responses to foreign travel; the search abroad for "civic images" to oppose to industrialism; fiction and expansionism; the Europeanness of mid-Victorian poetry; the rise of middle-class tourism; the fascination of Italy and the Levant; and relations with America and Ireland.