Thesis abstract:

«p»«p»The English poet Austin Dobson (1840-1921) was well regarded and widely published in his day but in the second half of the twentieth century he slipped from public view and critical interest. Archival discoveries I have made cast new light on his identity and outlook and reveal Dobson’s work as the product of binary opposites: He was born in Engand but was partly French, his family had been Catholic but converted to Protestantism, he was born in the nineteenth century, but his intellectual interest was the eighteenth century and, in his social and political outlook, he privileged restraint and reform over violence and revolution. Dobson found the roots for these differences in the long tail consequences of the Renaissance and the Reformation, and his ideas are expressed in his poetry through themes such as rural life; the place of strong women in society, and humour as a characteristic of Englishness. Dobson is often described as an English Parnassian poet, although I argue this label was less important to him than it has been to later literary theorists. In the past thirty years Victorian literary theory has focused on the binary nature of poetry and the development of form as a vehicle for poetic expression. I argue that Dobson is worthy of reappraisal, given his intense focus on form and his bifurcated background and views. «/p»«/p»