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- Title
Alexander Smith and the Bisexual Poetics of A Life-Drama.
- Authors
Hughes, Linda K.
- Abstract
This article presents information related to poet Alexander Smith and the bisexual Poetics of a Life-Drama. Most commentators on Alexander Smith's "A Life-Drama," first published in biweekly installments in the "Critic," from March 1, 1852-January 15, 1853 before becoming the lead poem in Smith's debut volume of Poems, make two points: the poem seems to exist more for the sake of the images that constantly disrupt its narrative than for the story itself and the narrative shifts from transgression to redemption when, abruptly, the poet Walter pledges himself at the end to union with the woman he formerly wronged. In other words, the poem culminates in chivalric masculinity and heterosexual union-compensatory assurance after earlier solecisms against form, taste and moral decorum.
- Subjects
LIFE-Drama, A (Book); SMITH, Alexander, ca. 1830-1867; POETICS; POETRY (Literary form); ORAL history; WOMEN; MASCULINITY; VICTORIAN (Literary period)
- Publication
Victorian Poetry, 2004, Vol 42, Issue 4, p491
- ISSN
0042-5206
- Publication type
Literary Criticism
- DOI
10.1353/vp.2005.0005