Tennyson Among the Novelists

Description

Until now, the study of literary allusion has focused on allusions made by poets to other poets. In Tennyson Among the Novelists, John Morton presents the first book-length account of the presence of a poet's work in works of prose fiction. As well as shedding new light on the poems of Tennyson and their reception history, Morton covers a wide variety of novelists including Thomas Hardy, James Joyce, Evelyn Waugh, and Andrew O'Hagan, offering a fresh look at their approach to writing. Morton shows how Tennyson's poetry, despite its frequent depreciation by critics, has survived as a vivifying presence in the novel from the Victorian period to the present day.

John Morton is Lecturer in English at the University of Greenwich, UK.

John Morton's Tennyson Among the Novelists is a splendid piece of work: it is a highly informative and entertaining feat of sustained literary detection, finding the Laureate's influence, and his words, in a wide variety of unexpected places, but also an extraordinarily learned and judicious account of the relation between prose and poetry since Tennyson's time. The material Morton has unearthed is stimulating, and his quietly penetrating critical comments bring out its rich significance in a very impressive way. Tennyson in particular became a symbol of the Victorians to later generations, so his case is profoundly telling for the way modern writers have positioned themselves in relation to the past. This book is proof - if proof were needed - that allusion remains a crucial and immensely productive area of literary study. -- Professor Philip Horne, University College London, UK An immensely informative and entertaining mapping of Tennyson's cultural status. From his contemporaries to our own, the book insightfully analyses a range of works that allude to and quote from the Victorian laureate. Tennyson's shifting status in fiction allows Morton to probe the ways in which succeeding generations of writers understand their relationship to the Victorian period. -- Beth Palmer, Teaching Fellow in Victorian Literature, University of Leeds, UK John Morton's Tennyson Among the Novelists is a comprehensively literate and refreshingly counter-intuitive study of the significant role that the poet has played for novelists from the Victorian period to today. It makes a strong case for the restoration of Tennyson's place in our genealogies of cross-genre literary development. -- Michael Sayeau, Department of English, University College London, UK Morton charts the reception of Tennyson in fiction, making us realize, for example, how surprisingly often D. H. Lawrence quotes Tennyson, and proving along the way how deeply embedded Tennyson remains in cultural memory. The last three (of nine) chapters have the additional merit of functioning as a resource book for Neovictorian courses or reading lists... [Morton's] study is a compendium of fascinating literary traces of Tennyson, who turns up in some very unexpected places indeed. -- Victorian Poetry Year's Work ... a skilful and convincing analysis of Tennysonian allusion, and of Tennyson's place in literary and cultural history. It is hoped that other scholars will follow Morton's example and continue to explore this fertile territory in the future. -- Tennyson Research Bulletin Vol 9, No.5 John Morton's Tennyson Among the Novelists is an extensive study of responses of Tennyson in Victorian and twentieth-century fiction. There is a fascinating section on Hardy and the influence of Tennyson upon his work. Mention too should be made of Morton's clear accounts of Tennyson's impact upon Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Evelyn Waugh, and others. * Years Work in English Studies, vol 91, no 1, 2012 *