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The author analyses Victorian literary criticism as a rich source of contemporary interpretative ideas. She follows the interpretative pursuits of nineteenth-century readers and analyses Tennyson´s The Princess through the prism of their critical ideas.

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The author follows the interpretative pursuits of nineteenth-century readers and analyses Tennyson´s The Princess through the prism of their critical ideas. She analyses Tennyson´s reconsideration of gender binaries and women´s rights as well as the poem´s reliance on the aesthetics of the grotesque and its metapoetic games. The book rests on the premise that literature cannot be studied in isolation from its immediate socio-historical context. As such, poetry becomes an outcome of social and cultural negotiations, moving "in a strange diagonal" between the author and his public.

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Contents: Victorian literary criticism - Literature and its immediate socio-historical context - Alfred Lord Tennyson - The Princess - Tennyson´s reconsideration of gender binaries and women´s rights - Aesthetics of the grotesque - Metapoetic games - The author and his public - The picture of poetry as an outcome of social and cultural negotiations.

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Magdalena Pypec teaches English literature at the Warsaw University, Poland.
Her research focuses on Victorian poetry and prose.

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