'Favored in My Birthplace': Local Roots and Cultural Identity in Victorian Writing

Author(s)

Patrick G. Scott, University of South Carolina - ColumbiaFollow

Document Type

Paper

Subject Area(s)

Victorian literature, Victorian poetry

Abstract

Discusses the vocabularies in which literary critics since Matthew Arnold have described writing about place ("local," "regional," "national," "cosmopolitan," "peripheral," "central," "universal," "parochial," and "provincial"), and the differing perspectives of writers from Wordsworth to Thomas Hardy, to argue that the Victorian recognition of and ambivalence about provinciality is of lasting significance for understanding cultural identity in complex societies.

Publication Info

1991.

Patrick Scott, "'Favored in My Birthplace': Local Roots and Cultural Identity in Victorian Writing." (c) Patrick Scott, 1991.

Rights

Patrick Scott, "'Favored in My Birthplace': Local Roots and Cultural Identity in Victorian Writing." (c) Patrick Scott, 1991.