Victorian literatures fascination with the past, its examination of social injustice, and its struggle to deal with the dichotomy between scientific discoveries and religious faith continue to fascinate scholars and contemporary readers. During the past hundred years, traditional formalist and humanist criticism has been augmented by new critical approaches, including feminism and gender studies, psychological criticism, cultural studies, and others.InTwenty-First Century Perspectives on Victorian Literature, twelve scholars offer new assessments of Victorian poetry, novels, and nonfiction. Their essays examine several major authors and works, and introduce discussions of many others that have received less scholarly attention in the past. General reviews of the current status of Victorian literature in the academic world are followed by essays on such writers as Charles Dickens, Alfred Tennyson, Thomas Hardy, and the Brontë sisters. These are balanced by essays that focus on writing by women, the development of the social problem novel, and the continuity of Victorian writers with their Romantic forebears.Most importantly, the contributors to this volume approach Victorian literature from a decidedly contemporary scholarly angle and write for a wide audience of specialists and non-specialists alike. Their essays offer readers an idea of how critical commentary in recent years has influencedand in some cases changed radicallyour understanding of and approach to literary study in general and the Victorian period in particular. Hence, scholars, teachers, and students will find the volume a useful survey of contemporary commentary not just on Victorian literature, but also on the period as a whole.

Laurence W. Mazzeno is president emeritus of Alvernia University (Reading, Pennsylvania). He is the author of several books, includingThe Victorian Novel: An Annotated Bibliography (Scarecrow, 1989) andVictorian Poetry (Scarecrow, 1995), and has written more than two hundred articles and reviews. Mazzeno is the editor of numerous collections, including the multi-volumeMasterplotsseries.

AcknowledgementsIntroductionChapter 1: Victorian Literature: A Cultural and Historical Overview,Jennifer CadwalladerChapter 2: The velocity of the novel-producing apparatus and large loose baggy monsters: The Changing Reputation of the Victorian Novel,Tamara Sylvia WagnerChapter 3: Popular Fiction and Social Protest: Dickens in the 1830s,Chris LouttitChapter 4: Faith and Doubt: Tennyson and Other Victorian Poets,Saverio TomaiuoloChapter 5: Victorian Romanticism: The Brontë Sisters, Thomas Carlyle, and the Persistence of Memory,Laura DabundoChapter 6: Overt and Covert Narrative Structure: A Reconsideration of Jane Eyre,Katherine Saunders NashChapter 7: What is a Social Problem Novel?,Barbara LeckieChapter 8: Matrimony, Property, and the Woman Question in Anne Brontë and Mary Elizabeth Braddon,Amy J. RobinsonChapter 9: A World of Its Own Creation: Pre-Raphaelite Poetry and the New Paradigm for Art,David LathamChapter 10: Matthew Arnold as a Critic: A Twenty-First Century Perspective,Clinton MachannChapter 11: Great Expectations, Memories, and Hopes Dashed: Dickens and Late Style,Grace MooreChapter 12: Tragedy and Ecology in the Later Novels of Thomas Hardy,Ronald D. MorrisonFurther ReadingContributors