Wordsworth and English Literary Pilgrimage in the Nineteenth Century: Refashioning the Nations Sacred Imaginary [Hardback]

Keith Hanley is a very well-known scholar, eminent in his field, who has published excellent material on Wordsworth and Victorian topics. After long study of Victorian literature, he has written a book which brings his research to its culmination. Cogently argued and imaginatively illustrated, it treats judiciously selected texts in an informative manner, pitching itself well for lay reader and scholar alike. It is rare to find a scholar who so ably combines a gift for theory with an ability to provide close reading. * Professor Lucy Newlyn, Emeritus Fellow in English, University of Oxford, UK * Keith Hanley brings together the fruits of a lifetime's study of the long nineteenth century in following the geographical and psychic trails of Wordsworth, Ruskin and Newman who all travelled far in order to reestablish a specifically British sacred imaginary. Contesting secularising narratives, the study offers compelling readings of Wordsworth's development of an Anglican sublime, while discerning in all three of its literary subjects a psychogeography of the spirit. Erudite and elegant, this study takes familiar writers to new places. * Alison Milbank, Emeritus Professor of Theology and Literature, University of Nottingham, UK *