Catherine Maxwell
Biographic Data
| ID | 3968109 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Catherine Maxwell |
| GIVEN NAMES | Catherine |
| FAMILY NAME | Maxwell |
| SIGNATURE | MAXWELL C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Queen Mary University of London |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 0 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 14 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1995 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 0 |
The Cambridge Companion to Walter Pater
This is the first and only comprehensive introductory study of Walter Pater, novelist, short story writer, literary critic, and philosopher. One of the late nineteenth century's most important and least understood writers, Pater evinced a new mode of hedonism that presented a fundamental challenge to the prevailing moral and social norms of his contemporaries, responding to post-Darwinian sensibility, waning faith, and new philosophies in ethics …
Swinburne and Burges
This article establishes some key points of contact between William Burges (1827–1881), called ‘the only Pre-Raphaelite architect’, and Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909), an intimate of the Pre-Raphaelite circle and often referred to as a Pre-Raphaelite poet for some of his verse produced during the 1860s, though later seen as a foundational literary figure for Victorian Aestheticism and Decadence. The first to examine the relationship betwe…
Michael Field in Context
Few authors attract as much fascination as 'Michael Field', the collaborative pseudonym of Katharine Bradley (1846–1914) and Edith Cooper (1862–1913), an aunt and niece living and working together in devoted fellowship. As Michael Field, Bradley and Cooper published over thirty volumes of poetry and verse drama across a career lasting from the 1880s to the 1910s. Here, chapters by thirty-six experts introduce the historical and cultural contexts …
Swinburne, Pater, and the Cult of Strange Beauty
This article explores how Walter Pater’s conception of ‘strange beauty’ is integral to Victorian decadence and is a legacy from his immediate and most influential precursor, the poet and essayist Algernon Charles Swinburne. After tracing the personal connections of these two writers, the article examines the complex literary intersections of their texts with specific reference to ‘strange beauty’ and concludes with a short summary of its impact o…
Smell
This chapter explores the topic of olfaction and perfume in decadent culture by arguing that many decadent authors styled themselves as olfactifs—cultivated individuals with a refined sense of smell. They celebrated fragrance both in their personal lives and in their writings, where the odors of perfume, incense, and tobacco emerge as the dominant olfactory keynotes of decadence. The chapter opens with a discussion of smoking and notes its variou…
Sarah Grand and Oscar Wilde
It is usual to put the New Woman writer Sarah Grand alongside Oscar Wilde to mark their differences. However, this essay suggests that these two authors had more in common than at first appears, both with regards to the fashioning of their literary identities and to their literary productions. Grand's compendious best-selling novel The Heavenly Twins (1893) is usually seen as realist fiction, but its interlude titled “The Tenor and the Boy,” whic…
Scents and Sensibility
A major reconceptualization of the imagination that reinstates its hidden links with the historically neglected sense of smell, this book is the first to examine the role played by scent and perfume in Victorian literary culture. Perfume-associated notions of imaginative influence and identity are central to this study, which explores the unfamiliar scented world of Victorian literature, concentrating on texts associated with aestheticism and dec…
Dandies and Decadents
This chapter examines the decadent olfactif as represented by Oscar Wilde and the poet and critic Arthur Symons, who understood how perfume helped shape their identities as dandies and sophisticated men about town, with both of them alluding to new synthetic scents. Wilde’s use of perfume as a sign of decadent sexual identity, explored in Dorian Gray , is rudely interrupted by his imprisonment in 1895, but the idea of perfume abides with him duri…
Les Fleurs du Mâle
Focusing on the founding figures of British aestheticism, Algernon Charles Swinburne and Walter Pater, this chapter discusses how they embraced the identity of the aesthetic olfactif , the cultivation of scent sensitivity, and the notion of the perfumed atmosphere produced by individual writers and literary or cultural schools, with this reflected in their influential critical prose. While Swinburne’s notorious Poems and Ballads (1866) apparently…
Late Victorian Poets
In recent years, a succession of notable Caroline Blyth, ed., Decadent Verse: An Anthology of Late-Victorian Poetry, 1872-1900, Anthem Press, 2009, £100.00 hardback 978 1 843 31302 1. anthologies h
Teaching nineteenth-century aesthetic prose
This article reviews a writing-intensive course on nineteenth-century aesthetic prose devised for the undergraduate curriculum of the School of English and Drama at Queen Mary, University of London, and considers the results to date. Using examples of students’ coursework, the article examines the use of logbooks and creative exercises, considers their effectiveness, and attempts to elucidate their advantages over the traditional essay format. A …
Reading the Heart
The Lady Vanishes
The poetic context of Christina Rossetti's ‘after death’
(1995). The poetic context of Christina Rossetti's ‘after death’. English Studies: Vol. 76, No. 2, pp. 143-155
No prominent works on this page.
The poetic context of Christina Rossetti's ‘after death’
(1995). The poetic context of Christina Rossetti's ‘after death’. English Studies: Vol. 76, No. 2, pp. 143-155
The Lady Vanishes
Reading the Heart
Teaching nineteenth-century aesthetic prose
This article reviews a writing-intensive course on nineteenth-century aesthetic prose devised for the undergraduate curriculum of the School of English and Drama at Queen Mary, University of London, and considers the results to date. Using examples of students’ coursework, the article examines the use of logbooks and creative exercises, considers their effectiveness, and attempts to elucidate their advantages over the traditional essay format. A …
Late Victorian Poets
In recent years, a succession of notable Caroline Blyth, ed., Decadent Verse: An Anthology of Late-Victorian Poetry, 1872-1900, Anthem Press, 2009, £100.00 hardback 978 1 843 31302 1. anthologies h
Scents and Sensibility
A major reconceptualization of the imagination that reinstates its hidden links with the historically neglected sense of smell, this book is the first to examine the role played by scent and perfume in Victorian literary culture. Perfume-associated notions of imaginative influence and identity are central to this study, which explores the unfamiliar scented world of Victorian literature, concentrating on texts associated with aestheticism and dec…
Dandies and Decadents
This chapter examines the decadent olfactif as represented by Oscar Wilde and the poet and critic Arthur Symons, who understood how perfume helped shape their identities as dandies and sophisticated men about town, with both of them alluding to new synthetic scents. Wilde’s use of perfume as a sign of decadent sexual identity, explored in Dorian Gray , is rudely interrupted by his imprisonment in 1895, but the idea of perfume abides with him duri…
Les Fleurs du Mâle
Focusing on the founding figures of British aestheticism, Algernon Charles Swinburne and Walter Pater, this chapter discusses how they embraced the identity of the aesthetic olfactif , the cultivation of scent sensitivity, and the notion of the perfumed atmosphere produced by individual writers and literary or cultural schools, with this reflected in their influential critical prose. While Swinburne’s notorious Poems and Ballads (1866) apparently…
Smell
This chapter explores the topic of olfaction and perfume in decadent culture by arguing that many decadent authors styled themselves as olfactifs—cultivated individuals with a refined sense of smell. They celebrated fragrance both in their personal lives and in their writings, where the odors of perfume, incense, and tobacco emerge as the dominant olfactory keynotes of decadence. The chapter opens with a discussion of smoking and notes its variou…
Sarah Grand and Oscar Wilde
It is usual to put the New Woman writer Sarah Grand alongside Oscar Wilde to mark their differences. However, this essay suggests that these two authors had more in common than at first appears, both with regards to the fashioning of their literary identities and to their literary productions. Grand's compendious best-selling novel The Heavenly Twins (1893) is usually seen as realist fiction, but its interlude titled “The Tenor and the Boy,” whic…
Swinburne, Pater, and the Cult of Strange Beauty
This article explores how Walter Pater’s conception of ‘strange beauty’ is integral to Victorian decadence and is a legacy from his immediate and most influential precursor, the poet and essayist Algernon Charles Swinburne. After tracing the personal connections of these two writers, the article examines the complex literary intersections of their texts with specific reference to ‘strange beauty’ and concludes with a short summary of its impact o…
Michael Field in Context
Few authors attract as much fascination as 'Michael Field', the collaborative pseudonym of Katharine Bradley (1846–1914) and Edith Cooper (1862–1913), an aunt and niece living and working together in devoted fellowship. As Michael Field, Bradley and Cooper published over thirty volumes of poetry and verse drama across a career lasting from the 1880s to the 1910s. Here, chapters by thirty-six experts introduce the historical and cultural contexts …
The Cambridge Companion to Walter Pater
This is the first and only comprehensive introductory study of Walter Pater, novelist, short story writer, literary critic, and philosopher. One of the late nineteenth century's most important and least understood writers, Pater evinced a new mode of hedonism that presented a fundamental challenge to the prevailing moral and social norms of his contemporaries, responding to post-Darwinian sensibility, waning faith, and new philosophies in ethics …
Swinburne and Burges
This article establishes some key points of contact between William Burges (1827–1881), called ‘the only Pre-Raphaelite architect’, and Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909), an intimate of the Pre-Raphaelite circle and often referred to as a Pre-Raphaelite poet for some of his verse produced during the 1860s, though later seen as a foundational literary figure for Victorian Aestheticism and Decadence. The first to examine the relationship betwe…
Art (9 works) · Literature (8 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Art history (5 works) · Decadence (5 works) · Poetry (5 works) · Aestheticism (4 works) · Decadence, Literature, and Society (4 works) · Psychology (4 works) · Aesthetics (3 works)