Victorian Poetry

CYNTHIA SCHEINBERG

facing the religious prophet, who must either be believed or deemed mad.
None of these poets could assume that their audience would only be made
up of readers who shared their own viewpoints. If, as Carlyle put it, "the
Vates ... is a man sent hither to make it [the "open secret"] more
impressively known to us," then Victorian poets sought to inform their
readers of not only the content of that divine "secret" but also the diverse
social and political dynamics involved in any act of prophetic poetry.

NOTES

I would like to offer special thanks to Joseph Bristow. His thoughtful responses
and suggestions for revision have been almost universally incorporated.
1 Sir Philip Sidney, "The Defence of Poetry," in Sir Philip Sidney, ed. Katherine
Duncan-Jones, The Oxford Authors (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989),
214-15, 217.
2 Thomas Carlyle, "The Hero as Poet," in Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship
and the Heroic in History, The Works of Thomas Carlyle, centenary edition, 30
vols. (London: Chapman and Hall, 1896-99), V, 80-81.
3 Gary Waller, English Poetry of the Sixteenth Century (London: Longman,
1986), 17.
4 Stephen Gosson, The Schoole of Abuse and a Short Apologie for the Schoole of
Abuse, ed. Edward Arber (London: Alex, Murray, and Son, 1868), 19. The
Elizabethan spelling presented in this edition has been modernized here.
5 Gerald Parsons, "Reform, Revival and Realignment: The Experience of Vic-
torian Anglicanism," in Religion in Victorian Britain: Traditions, ed. Parsons, 5
vols. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988), I, 15.
6 Parsons, "From Dissenters to Free Churchmen: The Transition of Victorian
Nonconformity," in Religion in Victorian Britain, ed. Parsons, I, 71.
7 Parsons, "Victorian Roman Catholicism: Emancipation, Expansion and
Achievement," in Religion in Victorian Britain, I, 150. For more on Roman
Catholicism see the aforementioned article and the excellent bibliography
accompanying his article. See also Sheridan Gilley, "Roman Catholicism," in
Nineteenth Century English Religious Traditions: Retrospect and Prospect, ed.
D.G. Paz (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995), 33-56.
8 Parsons, "Victorian Roman Catholicism," Religion in Victorian Britain, I, 152.
9 Parsons, "Victorian Roman Catholicism," Religion in Victorian Britain, I, 181.
10 On Anglo-Jewish history and life in Victorian England, see, for example, David
Englander, "Anglicized, not Anglican: Jews and Judaism in Victorian England,"
in Religion in Victorian Britain, I, 235-73.
I1 For more on the influence of the Oxford Movement, see Geoffrey Faber, Oxford
Apostles: A Character Study of the Oxford Movement (London: Faber and
Faber, 1933), and G.B. Tennyson, Victorian Devotional Poetry: The Tractarian
Mode (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981).
12 John Wolffe, "Anglicanism," in Nineteenth-Century English Religious Tradi-
tions, ed. Paz, 10.
13 Wolffe, "Anglicanism," Nineteenth-Century English Religious Traditions, 12.

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