Download e-book for iPad: An Age of Equipoise? Reassessing mid-Victorian Britain by Martin Hewitt

The Age of Equipoise by way of W.L Burn was once released in 1964 and have become a significant textual content within the canon of interpretations of the Victorian interval. The booklet therefore fell out of favour yet fresh claims to set up a brand new interpretative average have, satirically, triggered reviewers to solid again to Burn's paintings because the orthodox general opposed to which such claims may be judged. The essays during this quantity by way of British and American individuals all interact, to various levels, with the concept of 'equipoise' and the way it could aid to light up the mid-Victorian interval in methods which replacement formulations can't. many of the chapters improve arguments embedded in Burn's personal e-book; others soak up concerns principally absent within the Age of Equipoise, reminiscent of the placement of youngsters, Britain's interplay with the broader global, and the threats the interval skilled to its notion of masculine id. jointly the essays display the intricacy and turbulence of the forces of team spirit in Victorian society, besides the good fortune of that tradition achieve a operating, if moving, modus vivendi. additionally, they substantiate the argument that, regardless of the boundaries of Burn's paintings, 'equipoise' merits rehabilitation as a strong conceptual framework for making experience of mid-Victorian Britain. concerning the Editor: Martin Hewitt is Director of the Leeds Centre for Victorian reviews and editor of the magazine of Victorian tradition. With Robert Poole he has lately produced an variation of The Diaries of Samuel Bamford, 1858-61 (Sutton, 2000).