Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

In the twilight of Georgian England, Dr William Maginn sat down, still in the convivial company of brother scribblers for Fraser's Magazine, and wrote an unsigned review of Mr Grantley Berkeley's novel Berkeley Castle, which exposed the aristocratic pretensions of the author (a member of Parliament), and concluded, “Berkeley Castle in conception is the most impertinent, as in execution it is about the stupidest, it has ever been our misfortune to read. It is also quite decisive of the character of the author as a ‘gentleman.’” Maginn's review, while accurate to a “T,” was also clearly fueled by a stronger brew, as well as by the animosity he felt, being an inordinately learned but somewhat unfortunate Irishman afloat in London, at snubs inflicted by semi-literate English snobs. A duel ensued, in which both politician and critic missed their marks several times. It was in the next year, 1837, that Victoria came to the throne. By the time of her death, two long generations later, politics remained much the same; yet literary criticism had become more polite, as well as more scholarly, professional, and (metaphorically) on target. A. C. Bradley's Shakespearean Criticism (1904), a work that was hailed as a masterpiece of psychological analysis and which occasionally is cited without caveat by critics today, may be taken as an end point. Midway between these dates, Matthew Arnold in ... log in or subscribe to read full text