This book is about the resonance and implications of the idea of 'eternal recurrence', as expounded notably by Nietzsche, in relation to a range of nineteenth-century literature. It opens up the issue of repetition and cyclical time as a key feature of both poetic and prose texts in the Victorian/Edwardian period. The emphasis is upon the resonance of landscape as a vehicle of meaning, and upon the philosophical and aesthetic implications of the doctrine of 'recurrence' for the authors whose work is examined here, ranging from Tennyson and Hallam to Swinburne and Hardy. The book offers radically new light on a range of central nineteenth-century texts.

Moves artfully and productively between 'high theory' and traditional historically inflected close reading Focuses on Tennyson and Hardy but also looks at work by Hallam and Swinburne Examines this work through a wide range of theoretical lenses

Autorentext

Roger Ebbatson is currently Visiting Professor at Lancaster University, UK, having previously taught at the University of Sokoto, Nigeria, the University of Worcester, and Loughborough University. He is a Fellow of the English Association, and a Vice-President of the Tennyson Society. His publications include Lawrence and the Nature Tradition (1980), Hardy: The Margin of the Unexpressed (1994), An Imaginary England (2005), Heidegger's Bicycle (2006), and Landscape & Literature, 1830-1914 (2013).

Inhalt

Introduction.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Romantic Fragments: The Poetry of Arthur Hallam.- 3. Young Tennyson and the Orient.- 4. Morte'd'Arthur: The Landscape of Eternal Return.- 5. Friendship and Melancholia: In Memoriam LXXXV.- 6. Richard Jefferies: Seeking the Beyond.- 7. 'Time's Mindless Rote': Evolution and Recurrence in Hardy.- 8. Tess's Boots: Hardy and Van Gogh.- 9. The Isle of Slingers: Hardy and Portland Bill.- 10. 'Before the Mirror': Swinburne, Hardy, Kristeva.- Bibliography.- Index.