A "Living Political Dialect": The Science of Language and the Victorian Epic Impulse

<p>This dissertation investigates the lively interchange between Victorian literature, the science of language, and liberal politics. I argue that Victorian authors used language-science, the study of the origins and nature of human speech, as a powerful model for engaging the diminishing status of hereditary rule and the rise of popular sovereignty. Philologists and natural scientists presented a new understanding of language as a self-enclosed, evolutionary system. This autonomy of language, in turn, mirrored Victorian Britain's emerging liberal society, with its emphasis on self-governance and laissez-faire economics. While previous scholars have characterized Victorian language-science as depoliticized and reactionary, I show how works by Thomas Carlyle, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Alfred Tennyson, and the lesser-known but fascinating Darwinian poet Mathilde Blind draw on language-science to explore the redistribution of political power in the age of reform.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English and American Literature

Year dc:date.available

2014

Author dc:creator

• Barrow, Barbara Ann

Contributors dc:contributor

• William McKelvy

• Gender
• Liberalism
• Science
• Victorian literature and culture

Language dc:language

English (en)

DOI

https://doi.org/10.7936/K7C827C0

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:openscholarship.wustl.edu:etd-2283