Victorian Voices in British Patriotic Poetry Anthologies, 1880–1901

Scholars of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British imperial literature and culture often neglect poetry. Whilst at least some poets and their usually single-authored imperial work have received serious attention, patriotic poetry anthologies of the same period remain comparatively underresearched, as they tend to be discussed very briefly, when not simply mentioned in passing, apparently with the sole notable exception of W. E. Henley’s 1891 Lyra Heroica. The product of a one-year research project which explores the crossroads between British high imperialism and anthologies of poetry (‘The British Empire in Verse: Patriotic Poetry Anthologies in Great Britain, 1880–1914’), my paper sets out to go beyond the mere acknowledgment of this type of book by describing the ways in which it enacts an ideologically-charged double ‘rewriting’ of history and literature. More specifically, this paper aims to illustrate how ‘the picking of flowers from available sources’ and the arrangement of such flowers carry meaning in largely forgotten collections of verse compiled by late Victorians, such as ‘Poems of English Heroism’ (1882), ‘Poems of England’ (1896), ‘Poems of the Love and Pride of England’ (1897) and ‘Patriotic Song’ (1901). In spite of many ‘factors beyond the anthologist’s control’ that may seriously impinge on his/her choice of material from contemporary writers, ‘such as copyright problems, outrageous permissions fees, or a poet’s refusal to be anthologized’ (Korte 2000), and unlike Palgrave’s ‘Golden Treasury’ (1861), ‘the most famous Victorian poetry anthology’ that in fact ‘does not contain a single Victorian poem’ (Haass 1985), these anthologies do rely on Victorian voices to perform their intended ideological function. This paper will thus show not only which Victorian authors and texts were usually selected by late Victorian editors of patriotic poetry anthologies, but also how they contributed to fostering patriotism