Victorian Poetry

COVE, the Central Online Victorian Educator, originally constituted in 2016, is a scholar-driven, open-access platform, maintained and supported by the North American Victorian Studies Association (NAVSA), the British Association for Victorian Studies (BAVS), and the Australasian Victorian Studies Association (AVSA), as well as by a number of independent institutions including Purdue, Texas Christian University, the University of Delaware, Ryerson University, Carleton University, the University of Alberta–Birkbeck, the University of Exeter, Queen Mary University of London, and the University of Birmingham. COVE is designed to support and publish all Victorian materials that are considered important for the understanding of the period and to support teaching through innovative tools and the publication of material that can be used creatively. COVE publishes peer-reviewed material, provides tools to guide Victorian research and pedagogy, and advocates interest in the humanities. The platform cultivates and explores the possibilities of digital technologies, opening up new ways of understanding the period through editions of various Victorian works (see https://editions.covecollective.org/content/about-cove).

Current COVE poetry editions, among others, include Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” (1862), Oscar Wilde’s “The Harlot’s House” (1885 Wilde’s “The Harlot’s House” (1904), Elizabeth Barratt Browning’s “On a Portrait of Wordsworth by B. R. Haydon” (1842) and Rossetti’s “In An Artist’s Studio” (1856 “In An Artist’s Studio” (1896). The digital edition of Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” (https://editions.covecollective.org/edition/goblin-market) is the work of a team of eight current Rossetti scholars: Antony Harrison, Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Mary Arseneau, Alison Chapman, Margaret Linley, Emma Mason, and Richard Menke. This edition aims to provide an authoritative text with critical commentary that explores the linguistic, textual, historical, cultural, and interpretative aspects of the poem. It features both a biographical introduction to Rossetti and an editorial introduction to the text. The biographical introduction outlines Rossetti’s life and work, her involvement within the Pre-Raphaelite circle, and the formative influences on her visual and poetic imagination. Both introductions trace the reception of Rossetti’s work, from after her death to current critical interest and research, acknowledging her position as an important Victorian poet. The editorial introduction lists the other important editions of the poem printed since 1862. It features editions such as the volume with accompanying illustrations by her [End Page 455] brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Rebecca Crump’s three-volume variorum edition, The Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti (1979–1990). This edition also incorporates the notes supplied by Christina Rossetti’s brother William Michael Rossetti and thus reconsiders his role as the editor of both her and D. G. Rossetti’s poetical works. The annotations and commentary for the poem encompass the various approaches to “Goblin Market,” using categorical (such as linguistic, textual, historical) and color-coded tags to show the variants in the text and provide biographical and cultural information about Rossetti and the Victorian era. The interpretive tag displays further information about Rossetti’s poetic techniques or influences, visual and musical responses to the poem, and the critical reception of Rossetti’s poem. Each color-coded tag shows the annotator’s name and the category or categories under which he or she falls.

Wilde’s “The Harlot’s House” (https://editions.covecollective.org/edition/harlots-house), edited and annotated by Dennis Denisoff, Regenia Gagnier, Natalie Houston, Jamil Mustafa, Diana Maltz, Stefano Evangelista, and Dominique Gracia, is an edition that reconsiders “The Harlot’s House” as an example of a theater poem. The introduction to the text gives a brief overview of Wilde’s formative years and his involvement in the Aesthetic Movement and primarily focuses on his work as a poet as well as his theatrical work and interests. In the introduction, Denisoff and Gagnier explore the social issues and contexts, particularly prostitution, that inform Wilde’s poem. It features a list of primary, critical, and visual works cited. This edition establishes the poem’s editorial history from its original publication in the 1885 Dramatic Review and two privately printed versions of the text in 1904 and 1905 and fosters a virtual and scholarly community through which the poem can be kept on...