'Fading Crimean Flowers': Spasmodic Sonnets on the War. (July 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Willett, Mischa
• Is Part Of: Victoriographies. Volume 8:Number 2(2018)
• Page Start: 135
• Page End: 150
• Publication Date: 2018-07
• Subjects: Crimea -- war poetry -- Spasmodics -- Sydney Dobell -- Alexander Smith -- drama -- women; English literature -- 19th century -- Criticism and interpretation -- Periodicals; 820.9358
• DOI: 10.3366/vic.2018.0302
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2044-2416

Abstract

Abstract : In their refusal to aestheticise Crimean warfare, as most of their fellow poets and newspapermen had done, Sydney Dobell and Alexander Smith, in the co-authored Sonnets on the War (1855) present a harrowing picture of the conflict from myriad viewpoints, all of which deny the patriotism and hawkishness implicit in glamorising armed conflict. This poly-vocalic collection pushes more boundaries than has previously been noticed. The choice of form, itself a commentary – this is not a war fit for epic – the emphasis on women's roles, and the anonymous and ventriloquised voicing announce departures from conventions of martial verse, and also from what we have heretofore understood about these poets' careers.