Defining Victorian poetry

Hi guys, can someone please put me out of my misery and help me understand the following statement concerning the study of Victorian poets/poetry?

In the following excerpt, Isobel Armstrong, states that Victorian poets were "post-Romantic", and that this entails being "post-revolutionary", "post-industrial", "post-teleological" and "post-Kantian". I have reread this bit a countless amount of times, I understand of course, what these terms mean on their own, but I don't seem to grasp what Armstong tries to convey.

I have to apply these aspects to Tennyson's "In Memoriam 50", but of course I can't do that without really understanding Armstrong's theory first. How do these issues the Victorian period had to deal with become "post-x" for the Victorian poets?

Thank you very much in advance.


"The Victorian poets were post-Romantic but to understand the political and aesthetic consequences of this it is necessary to see what being post-Romantic entailed. For to be ‘new’, or ‘modern’ or ‘post-Romantic’ was to confront and self-consciously to conceptualise as new elements that are still perceived as the constitutive forms of our own condition. Whether a poet was a subversive reactionary, as Tennyson was, or attempting to write a radical poetry, as Browning was, such a poet was ‘modern’ or secondary in a number of ways, all of which involved the reformation of the categories of knowledge. A belated poet was post-revolutionary, existing with the constant possibility of mass political upheaval and fundamental change in the structure of society, which meant that the nature of society had to be redefined. Belatedness was post-industrial and post-technological, existing with and theorising the changed relationships and new forms of alienated labour which capitalism was consolidating, and conscious of the predatory search for new areas of exploitation which was creating a new colonial ‘outside’ to British society. It was post-teleological and scientific, conceiving beliefs, including those of Christianity, anthropologically in terms of belief systems and representations through myth. Simply because of its awareness of teleological insecurity, Victorian poetry is arguably the last theological poetry to be written.

Lastly, the supreme condition of posthumousness, it was post-Kantian. This meant, in the first place, that the category of art (and for the Victorians this was almost always poetry) was becoming ‘pure’. Art occupied its own area, a self- sufficing aesthetic realm over and against practical experience. It was outside the economy of instrumental energies (for in Kant art and technology spring into being simultaneously as necessary opposites). And yet it was at once apart and central, for it had a mediating function, representing and interpreting life. These contradictions were compounded by post-Kantian accounts of representation, which adapted Kant to make both the status and the mode of art problematical by seeing representations as the constructs of consciousness which is always at a remove from what it represents. Thus the possibility of a process of endless redefinition and an ungrounded, unstable series of representations was opened out. So the Victorian poets were the first group of writers to feel that what they were doing was simply unnecessary and redundant. For the very category of art itself created this redundancy."


Armstrong, Isobel. Victorian Poetry: Poetry, Poetics, and Politics. London: Routledge, 1993. Print. 3-4

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Originally Posted by lolaleon

Hi guys, can someone please put me out of my misery and help me understand the following statement concerning the study of Victorian poets/poetry?

In the following excerpt, Isobel Armstrong, states that Victorian poets were "post-Romantic", and that this entails being "post-revolutionary", "post-industrial", "post-teleological" and "post-Kantian". I have reread this bit a countless amount of times, I understand of course, what these terms mean on their own, but I don't seem to grasp what Armstong tries to convey.

I have to apply these aspects to Tennyson's "In Memoriam 50", but of course I can't do that without really understanding Armstrong's theory first. How do these issues the Victorian period had to deal with become "post-x" for the Victorian poets?

Thank you very much in advance.


"The Victorian poets were post-Romantic but to understand the political and aesthetic consequences of this it is necessary to see what being post-Romantic entailed. For to be ‘new’, or ‘modern’ or ‘post-Romantic’ was to confront and self-consciously to conceptualise as new elements that are still perceived as the constitutive forms of our own condition. Whether a poet was a subversive reactionary, as Tennyson was, or attempting to write a radical poetry, as Browning was, such a poet was ‘modern’ or secondary in a number of ways, all of which involved the reformation of the categories of knowledge. A belated poet was post-revolutionary, existing with the constant possibility of mass political upheaval and fundamental change in the structure of society, which meant that the nature of society had to be redefined. Belatedness was post-industrial and post-technological, existing with and theorising the changed relationships and new forms of alienated labour which capitalism was consolidating, and conscious of the predatory search for new areas of exploitation which was creating a new colonial ‘outside’ to British society. It was post-teleological and scientific, conceiving beliefs, including those of Christianity, anthropologically in terms of belief systems and representations through myth. Simply because of its awareness of teleological insecurity, Victorian poetry is arguably the last theological poetry to be written.

Lastly, the supreme condition of posthumousness, it was post-Kantian. This meant, in the first place, that the category of art (and for the Victorians this was almost always poetry) was becoming ‘pure’. Art occupied its own area, a self- sufficing aesthetic realm over and against practical experience. It was outside the economy of instrumental energies (for in Kant art and technology spring into being simultaneously as necessary opposites). And yet it was at once apart and central, for it had a mediating function, representing and interpreting life. These contradictions were compounded by post-Kantian accounts of representation, which adapted Kant to make both the status and the mode of art problematical by seeing representations as the constructs of consciousness which is always at a remove from what it represents. Thus the possibility of a process of endless redefinition and an ungrounded, unstable series of representations was opened out. So the Victorian poets were the first group of writers to feel that what they were doing was simply unnecessary and redundant. For the very category of art itself created this redundancy."


Armstrong, Isobel. Victorian Poetry: Poetry, Poetics, and Politics. London: Routledge, 1993. Print. 3-4

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I'll try, but I don't think I necessarily agree with it - it's too pat - hindsight is a wonderful thing.

The list of "post" stuff in the 1st paragraph is suggesting that the Victorians were too late in turning up to the party to be truly radical or original. Wordsworth and the romantics had already redefined the concept of the self and individuality through the concept of "nature" and sitting around by oneself and dreaming. The post-revolutionary is probably aimed at the French Revolution, which In Britain had lead to the Great Reform Act of 1832 which had given the middle and upper classes the vote. In addition, the age of steam had already occurred - the railways had already etched themselves onto much of the British landscape and enclosure driven people off the land towards the factories. Darwin is not mentioned here, which rather puts a hole in her argument as Origin of the Species suggested that creation may not have been an act of God and that was a huge shockwave that many are still trying to get to grips with.

Taking a cursory glance at In Memorium (what is it in memory of?) it looks like Tennyson is on the defensive of faith. Take a look at the line "Let knowledge grow from more to more/But more of reverence make us dwell." Why does he have to ask for more reverence, unless he feels "we" are not being reverent enough? Here Tennyson is acknowledging the changes in learning, but at the same time urging the reader to keep the faith. Tennyson seems to be on the defensive. The first verse also frames the narrative - "by faith and by faith alone" - the scientific "proofs" that God existed are falling away. God is no longer self-evident, but a product of faith.

The second paragraph suggests that Kant had rendered poetry redundant. The argument seems to be that art no longer represented or symbolised a universal truth, but the individual writer's thoughts (consciousness) which influenced the way the symbols were made. The reader could no longer accept or trust poetry (or art) as having a Universal theme, but as something coloured by the writer's own consciousness which rendered Art somewhat redundant as it no longer was a means of communicating Universal Truths "to the masses". I'm not entirely sure I buy this argument as clearly folk had opinions on art before Kant. Perhaps someone else can help here, but I'm not convinced.

Hope this helps.