Rudy (English, U. of Maryland at College Park) argues that Victorian poetry was characterized by a "physiological poetics" in which metrical, rhythmic, and sonic effects, along with other poetic features, were conceived of as having bodily effects as a central aspect of poetic transmission. Moreover, the physiological poetics of Victorian poetry cannot be separated from the development of the electrical sciences during the same period because much of 19th century electrical theory had to do with human bodies, including the ways that individual human bodies can connect to one another. Electricity served the Victorian poets as a tool for thinking about how poetry connects to human communities, and thus as a tool for thinking about the political consequences of poetry. He advances this argument through discussions of Alfred Tennyson's The Princess; the little known working-class poets known as the "Spasmodics" by their detractors; and works by Coventry Patmore, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Algernon Swinburne, and Mathilde Blind. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
In Electric Meters: Victorian Physiological Poetics Jason R. Rudy connects formal poetic innovations to developments in the electrical and physiological sciences, arguing that the electrical sciences and bodily poetics cannot be separated, and that they came together with special force in the years between the 1830s, which witnessed the invention of the electric telegraph, and the 1870s, when James Clerk Maxwell’s electric field theory transformed the study of electrodynamics. Combining formal poetic analysis with cultural history, Jason Rudy traces the development of Victorian physiological poetics from the Romantic poetess tradition through to the works of Alfred Tennyson, the “Spasmodic” poets, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Algernon Swinburne, among others.
Victorian poetry shocks with the physicality of its formal effects, linking the rhythms of the human body to the natural pulsation of the universe. In Electric Meters: Victorian Physiological Poetics Jason R. Rudy connects formal poetic innovations to developments in the electrical and physiological sciences, arguing that the electrical sciences and bodily poetics cannot be separated, and that they came together with special force in the years between the 1830s, which witnessed the invention of the electric telegraph, and the 1870s, when James Clerk Maxwell’s electric field theory transformed the study of electrodynamics.
Combining formal poetic analysis with cultural history, Rudy traces the development of Victorian physiological poetics from the Romantic poetess tradition through to the works of Alfred Tennyson, the “Spasmodic” poets, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Algernon Swinburne, among others. He demonstrates how poetic rhythm came increasingly to be understood throughout the nineteenth century as a physiological mechanism, as poets across class, sex, and national boundaries engaged intensely and in a variety of ways with the human body’s subtle response to rhythmic patterns. Whether that opportunity for transcendence was interpersonal or spiritual in nature, nineteenth–century poets looked to electricity as a model for overcoming boundaries, for communicating across the gaps between sound and sense, between emotion and thought, and—perhaps—between individuals in the modern world.
Electric Meters will appeal to those interested in poetry of any period and particularly those interested in nineteenth–century culture and history.
