This book brings to life the growth of the socialist movement among men and women artists and writers in late nineteenth-century Britain. For these campaigners, socialism was inseparable from a desire for a new beauty of life; beauty that also, for many, required them rejecting the sexual conventions of the Victorian era.
From the early 1880s and well into the twentieth century, the efforts of these writers and activists existed in critical tension with other contemporary developments in literary culture. Livesey maps the ongoing dialogue between socialist writers like William Morris, decadent aesthetes such as Oscar Wilde and defining figures of early modernism including Virginia Woolf and Roger Fry. She concludes that socialist writers developed a distinct political aesthetic in which the love of beauty was to act as a force for revolutionary change.
The book draws on archival research and extensive study of socialist periodicals, together with readings of works by writers including Morris, Wilde, Schreiner, George Bernard Shaw, Isabella Ford, Carpenter, Alfred Orage, Woolf and Fry. Livesey uncovers the lasting influence of socialist writers of the 1880s on the emergence of British literary modernism and by tracing the lives of neglected writers and activists such as Clementina Black and Dollie Radford, she provides a vivid evocation of an era in which revolution seemed imminent and the arts a vital route to that future.
| ISBN: | 9780197263983 |
| Publication date: | 18th October 2007 |
| Author: | Ruth Livesey |
| Publisher: | The British Academy an imprint of Liverpool University Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 236 pages |
| Series: | A British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship Monograph |
| Genres: |
Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000 Left-of-centre democratic ideologies Social and cultural history |
This book brings to life the growth of the socialist movement among men and women artists and writers in late nineteenth-century Britain. For these campaigners, socialism was inseparable from a desire for a new beauty of life; beauty that also, for many, required them rejecting the sexual conventions of the Victorian era.
From the early 1880s and well into the twentieth century, the efforts of these writers and activists existed in critical tension with other contemporary developments in literary culture. Livesey maps the ongoing dialogue between socialist writers like William Morris, decadent aesthetes such as Oscar Wilde and defining figures of early modernism including Virginia Woolf and Roger Fry. She concludes that socialist writers developed a distinct political aesthetic in which the love of beauty was to act as a force for revolutionary change.
The book draws on archival research and extensive study of socialist periodicals, together with readings of works by writers including Morris, Wilde, Schreiner, George Bernard Shaw, Isabella Ford, Carpenter, Alfred Orage, Woolf and Fry. Livesey uncovers the lasting influence of socialist writers of the 1880s on the emergence of British literary modernism and by tracing the lives of neglected writers and activists such as Clementina Black and Dollie Radford, she provides a vivid evocation of an era in which revolution seemed imminent and the arts a vital route to that future.
Socialism, Sex, and the Culture of Aestheticism in Britain, 1880-1914 features in the following genres: Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000, Left-of-centre democratic ideologies, Social and cultural history
Socialism, Sex, and the Culture of Aestheticism in Britain, 1880-1914 is available in Hardback
Socialism, Sex, and the Culture of Aestheticism in Britain, 1880-1914 was written by Ruth Livesey and published by The British Academy an imprint of Liverpool University Press
Socialism, Sex, and the Culture of Aestheticism in Britain, 1880-1914 has 236 pages
Yes it is part of A British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship Monograph series
£60.00