Professor Anna Barton
School of English
Reader in Victorian Literature, Co-Director of the Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies
+44 114 222 8483
Full contact details
School of English
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA
- Profile
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I joined the School of English at Sheffield in 2010 having previously taught at Keele University.
My research and teaching focuses on the literature, especially the poetry, of the nineteenth century. My work is informed by my interest in the way poetry understands its relationship with its historical moment and the ways it worries about and seeks to assert its ability to intervene into the politics, culture and philosophy of its day. My PhD (at the University of Glasgow) addressed these questions via a study of the names and acts of naming in Tennyson's poetry. I developed this project into my first monograph, Tennyson's Name: Identity and Responsibility in the Poetry of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Ashgate, 2008). My most recent publication, Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Liberal Thought: Forms of Freedom, explores the interplay between the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Arthur Hugh Clough, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Robert Browning and Matthew Arnold and the rise of modern liberalism in Victorian Britain.
My work on Tennyson also led me to develop a research interest in his friend, Edward Lear and in traditions of nonsense in literature and beyond.
I am currently developing a new research project focusing on the life and work of Mary Elizabeth Coleridge and her circle.
- Research interests
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My primary research interests lie in nineteenth-century literature, particularly Victorian poetry. I have published work on a range of poets including Tennyson, Swinburne, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Arthur Hugh Clough and Edward Lear.
I am interested in the relationship between poetry and other kinds of intellectual and cultural production. My most recent monograph, Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Liberal Thought: Forms of Freedom (Palgrave, 2017) seeks to read nineteenth-century poetry through the lens of liberal philosophy.
My next project will focus on the life and work of Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, late nineteenth-century poet, novelist and essayist. It will trace the development of Coleridge’s career and the network of friends and associates that influenced her work.
A second focus of my research is Nonsense Literature. With James Williams (University of York), I am co-editor of the Edinburgh Companion to Nonsense (under contract with Edinburgh University Press).
I am co-Director of the Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies here at Sheffield and I am also Series Editor of ‘Interventions: Rethinking the Nineteenth Century’, published by Manchester University Press, Commissioning Editor of the Victorian Literature section of Literature Compass and member of the editorial board of the Tennyson Association.
- Publications
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Books
- Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Liberal Thought: Forms of Freedom. Palgrave Macmillan UK.
- The Poetry of Christina Rossetti.
- Introduction. Manchester University Press.
- Alfred Lord Tennyson's 'In Memoriam'. Edinburgh University Press.
Edited books
- The Edinburgh Companion to Nonsense..
- Interventions: Rethinking the Nineteenth Century. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Journal articles
- Editing Mary Elizabeth Coleridge: The Lyric as Archive. Victorian Studies, 66(4), 609-634.
- Introduction: Companionable Nonsense. The Edinburgh Companion to Nonsense, 1-10.
- Hughes, Linda K. ed, The Cambridge Companion to Victorian Women’s Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. 308 pp. Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies, 16(3).
- ‘“Will the loom not cease whirring?”: Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Mary E. Coleridge’. Tennyson Research Bulletin, 11(3), 218-231.
- INVENTING EDWARD LEAR. TLS-THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT(6072), 26-26.
- Byron, Barrett Browning and the Organization of Light. Romanticism, 22(3), 289-298.
- FitzGerald's Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: Popularity and Neglect, edited by Adrian Poole, Christine van Ruymbeke, William H. Martin, and Sandra Mason. Victorian Studies, 56(2), 327-327.
- LONG VACATION PASTORALS: CLOUGH, TENNYSON, AND THE POETRY OF THE LIBERAL UNIVERSITY. Victorian Literature and Culture, 42(2), 251-266.
- Tennyson Among the Poets: Bicentenary Essays. NINETEENTH-CENTURY CONTEXTS-AN INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL, 33(4), 402-404.
- XIII * The Nineteenth Century: The Victorian Period. The Year's Work in English Studies, 89(1), 679-789.
- Delirious Bulldogs and Nasty Crockery: Tennyson as Nonsense Poet. Victorian Poetry, 47(1), 313-330.
- XIII * The Nineteenth Century: The Victorian Period. The Year's Work in English Studies, 88(1), 770-866.
- Boz, Ba and Derry Down Derry: Names and Pseudonyms in Victorian Literature. Literature Compass, 6(3), 799-809.
- Letters, Scraps of Manuscript, and Printed Poems: The Correspondence of Edward FitzGerald and Alfred Tennyson. Victorian Poetry, 46(1), 19-35.
- XIII * The Nineteenth Century: The Victorian Period. The Year's Work in English Studies, 87(1), 761-862.
- NURSERY POETICS: AN EXAMINATION OF LYRIC REPRESENTATIONS OF THE CHILD IN TENNYSON'S “THE PRINCESS”. Victorian Literature and Culture, 35(2), 489-500.
- "What profits me my name?" The Aesthetic Potential of the Commodified Name in Lancelot and Elaine. Victorian Poetry, 44(2), 135-152.
- "Eternal honour to his name": Tennyson's Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington and Victorian memorial aesthetics. Victorian Newsletter(106), 1-8.
- Editing mary Elizabeth Coleridge: The Lyric as Archive. Victorian studies, 66(4), 609-634.
Chapters
- ‘Doubtful Girls and Silly Women: Nonsense and Gender’ In Barton A & Williams J (Ed.), The Edinburgh Companion to Nonsense (pp. 247-263).
- The Liberal Self: Wordsworth and Barrett Browning In Barton A (Ed.), Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Liberal Thought: Forms of Freedom View this article in WRRO
- Locke in pentameters: Victorian poetry after (or before) posthumousness, Interventions: Rethinking the nineteenth century (pp. 53-71).
- 'Poetry as I comprehend the word': Charlotte Brontë's lyric afterlife In Wynne D & Regis A (Ed.), Charlotte Brontë: Legacies and Afterlives Manchester University Press
- Liberalism in Love: Barrett Browning, Browning and Meredith, Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Liberal Thought (pp. 129-178). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- Liberal Republicanism: Clough, Barrett Browning and Swinburne, Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Liberal Thought (pp. 179-231). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- Liberal Education: Wordsworth, Clough and Arnold, Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Liberal Thought (pp. 83-128). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- Introduction: Locke in Pentameters, Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Liberal Thought (pp. 1-23). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- Interventions Rethinking the nineteenth century Introduction, INTERVENTIONS: RETHINKING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (pp. 1-12).
- Conclusion, Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Liberal Thought (pp. 233-236). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- The Sense and Nonsense of Weariness: Edward Lear and Gertrude Stein read Tennyson In Williams J & Bevis M (Ed.), Edward Lear and the Play of Poetry (pp. 243-260). Oxford University Press View this article in WRRO
- ‘Beautiful things’: Nonsense and the museum, Literary Bric-à-Brac and the Victorians: From Commodities to Oddities (pp. 49-65).
- Perverse Forms: Reading Blake's Decadence In Boyiopoulos K & Sandy M (Ed.), Decadent Romanticism: 1780-1914 (pp. 15-27). Farnha: Routledge.
- 'Beautiful things': Nonsense and the museum, Literary Bric-a-Brac and the Victorians: From Commodities to Oddities (pp. 49-65).
- Lear, Edward (pp. 1-2). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
Book reviews
Conference proceedings papers
- By An Evolutionist: Poetic Language in Chambers and Tennyson Anna Barton. EVOLUTION OF LITERATURE: LEGACIES OF DARWIN IN EUROPEAN CULTURES, Vol. 152 (pp 87-99)
- Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Liberal Thought: Forms of Freedom. Palgrave Macmillan UK.
- Research group
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I have supervised and examined doctoral work on the literature of the long nineteenth century and would welcome PhD applicants who are interested in Victorian poetry, with particular reference to its relationship with aspects of nineteenth-century identity and culture.
- Teaching activities
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Undergradute:
- LIT 108: Studying Poetry
- LIT 2000: Genre
- LIT 270: Nonsense Literature
- LIT 3100: Romantic and Victorian Poetry
- LIT 3101: Romantic and Victorian Prose
- LIT 3046: Sappho’s Granddaughters: Poetry by Women, 1789-1901