Inventing Edward Lear

Erscheinungsjahr 2018
ISBN: 978-0-674-97115-8
Verlag: Harvard University Press

Buch, Englisch, 448 Seiten, Format (B × H): 164 mm x 244 mm, Gewicht: 863 g

“Inventing Edward Lear is an exceptional, valuable, original study, presenting new materials on aspects of Lear’s life and work.” —Jenny Uglow, author of Mr. Lear and The Lunar Men Edward Lear wrote some of the best-loved poems in English, including “The Owl and the Pussycat,” but the father of nonsense was far more than a poet. He was a naturalist, a brilliant landscape painter, an experimental travel writer, and an accomplished composer. Sara Lodge presents the fullest account yet of Lear’s passionate engagement in the intellectual, social, and cultural life of his times. Lear had a difficult start in life. He was epileptic, asthmatic, and depressive, but even as a child a consummate performer who projected himself into others’ affections. He became, by John James Audubon’s estimate, one of the greatest ornithological artists of the age. Queen Victoria—an admirer—chose him to be her painting teacher. He popularized the limerick, set Tennyson’s verse to music, and opened fresh doors for children and adults to share fantasies of magical escape. Lodge draws on diaries, letters, and new archival sources to paint a vivid picture of Lear that explores his musical influences, his religious nonconformity, his relationship with the Pre-Raphaelite movement, and the connections between his scientific and artistic work. He invented himself as a character: awkward but funny, absurdly sympathetic. In Lodge’s hands, Lear emerges as a dynamic and irreverent polymath whose conversation continues to draw us in. Inventing Edward Lear is an original and moving account of one of the most intriguing and creative of all Victorians.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lodge, Sara

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunst, allgemein Einzelne Künstler: Biographien, Monografien
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturgeschichte und Literaturkritik
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Einzelne Autoren: Monographien & Biographien

Über Autor(innen)

Lodge, Sara
Sara Lodge is Senior Lecturer in the School of English at the University of St Andrews, specializing in nineteenth-century literature and culture. She is the author of <i>Thomas Hood and Nineteenth-Century Poetry</i> and <i>Jane Eyre: A Reader’s Guide to Criticism</i>. Lodge has also worked as a speechwriter for the United Nations Secretary-General in New York and, as a journalist, writes regularly for the British and American press.