Pre-Raphaelite and Working-Class poetry, 1850-1900: an examination of a contiguous tradition

This thesis closes an existing gap within the field of Victorian poetry scholarship, as the relationship between Pre-Raphaelite and working-class poets has yet to be explored in depth by critics, in part because they superficially appear to be disparate. I argue that a contiguous tradition exists between the two groups which reveals connections through; shared political agendas, the use of the past to change tastes and ideas in the present, connections between imagery and form, and the use of contemporary events to modify public perceptions of their poetry. This focus is of significance to critics of the Victorian period because it is not necessary to prove that an individual poet or group has an influence over another. As a result, this thesis does not principally concern itself with the power relationships which are of interest to a New Historicist critic; rather it employs elements of Cultural Neo-Formalist criticism and Cultural Materialism. What emerges is an expanded notion of what constitutes Victorian high culture, as well as a more nuanced picture of social stratification