Newspaper Poems: Material Texts in the Public Sphere

While recent studies of Victorian literary criticism have investigated poetry's place in the periodical press, little attention has been paid to the history of poetry published in large-circulation general newspapers. This essay discusses poetry published in The London Times during the 1860s, examining the literal place of poetry within the newspaper, its themes and formal characteristics, and its relation to authorship. I suggest that reading these poems in relation to their original material context raises theoretical questions about the history of reading, intertextuality, and poetry's function in the public sphere.