Charles Kingsley has been repeatedly hailed as "quintessentially Victorian", a label which has served both to praise and bury the nineteenth-century polymath. This introduction outlines the landscapes, affections and obsessions which shaped Kingsley's life and career as parish priest and literary lion, revolutionary and courtier, Broad Churchman and evolutionist. It traces the fortunes of Kingsley's literary output in the twentieth century, exploring how his novels were overlooked, sold, illustrated, abridged and adapted for new media and new generations. It surveys Kingsley's shifting reception among historians and literary scholars from the 1930s to today. From the late 1970s on scholars have felt less call to apologize for giving Kingsley and his works considered attention. Disciplinary silos as well as a curiously prurient response to his embrace of an un-"Victorian" sexuality have nonetheless made it difficult to grasp Kingsley as a whole.

Charles Kingsley: ‘The most typical Victorian of them all’

Jan Marten Ivo Klaver
;
2021

Abstract

Charles Kingsley has been repeatedly hailed as "quintessentially Victorian", a label which has served both to praise and bury the nineteenth-century polymath. This introduction outlines the landscapes, affections and obsessions which shaped Kingsley's life and career as parish priest and literary lion, revolutionary and courtier, Broad Churchman and evolutionist. It traces the fortunes of Kingsley's literary output in the twentieth century, exploring how his novels were overlooked, sold, illustrated, abridged and adapted for new media and new generations. It surveys Kingsley's shifting reception among historians and literary scholars from the 1930s to today. From the late 1970s on scholars have felt less call to apologize for giving Kingsley and his works considered attention. Disciplinary silos as well as a curiously prurient response to his embrace of an un-"Victorian" sexuality have nonetheless made it difficult to grasp Kingsley as a whole.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11576/2674370
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