The spasmodic poets were a group of British poets of the Victorian era.[1] The term was coined by William Edmonstoune Aytoun with some derogatory as well as humorous intention.[2] The epithet itself is attributed, by Thomas Carlyle, to Lord Byron.
Spasmodic poets include George Gilfillan, the friend and inspiration of William McGonagall. Gilfillan worked for thirty years on his long poem Night, but he is best known for his encouragement of the young Spasmodics in literary reviews which he wrote under the pseudonym "Apollodorus". Others associated with the group were Philip James Bailey, Richard Hengist Horne, Sydney Thompson Dobell, Alexander Smith, John Stanyan Bigg, Gerald Massey, John Westland Marston, and Ebenezer Jones.[3]
The term "spasmodic" was also applied by contemporary reviewers to Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh, Tennyson's Maud, Longfellow's Golden Legend, and the poetry of Arthur Hugh Clough. These poets are not generally included in the Spasmodic school by modern literary critics. Spasmodic poetry was extremely popular from the late 1840s through the 1850s when it abruptly fell out of fashion. William Edmondstoune Aytoun's parodic Firmilian: A Spasmodic Tragedy (1854) is credited with getting the verse of the Spasmodic school laughed down as bombast.[4]
Spasmodic poetry frequently took the form of verse drama, the protagonist of which was often a poet. It was characterized by a number of features including lengthy introspective soliloquies by the protagonist, which led to the charge that the poetry was egotistical.
^Drabble, Margaret; Stringer, Jenny; Hahn, Daniel, eds. (2007). Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature (3 ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199214921.
^Laporte, Charles; Rudy, Jason R. (2004). "Editorial Introduction: Spasmodic Poetry and Poetics". Victorian Poetry. 42 (4): 421–427. doi:10.1353/vp.2005.0007. S2CID 162391710.
^Parsons, Nicholas (1988). The Joy of Bad Verse. London: Collins. pp. 165–166. ISBN 000217863X.
The spasmodicpoets were a group of British poets of the Victorian era. The term was coined by William Edmonstoune Aytoun with some derogatory as well...
two evenings, she brought twelve poets, including Rexroth, Robert Duncan and Spicer, to an audience of young poets and poetry lovers. This was the first...
(30 January 1813 – 13 August 1878) was a Scottish author and poet. One of the spasmodicpoets, Gilfillan was also an editor and commentator, with memoirs...
Philip James Bailey (22 April 1816 – 6 September 1902) was an English spasmodicpoet, best known as the author of Festus. Bailey was born on 22 April 1816...
mock-tragedy in which he parodied the poems of the Spasmodicpoets. It was intended to satirise a group of poets and critics, including George Gilfillan, Sydney...
1953), poet and children's writer Peter Giles (1860–1935), philologist George Gilfillan (1813–1878), author and poet, mentor of the Spasmodicpoets David...
Southern Agrarians Soviet nonconformism Spasmodicpoets Spectrism Sturm und Drang Surrealist poets The poets of Elan Transcendentalism Uranian poetry...
is an American poet and essayist best known for his work in the poetic elegy and for his academic championship of the Spasmodicpoets. Mischa Willett...
(5 April 1824 – 22 August 1874) was an English poet and critic, and a member of the so-called Spasmodic school. Dobell was born at Cranbrook, Kent. His...
John Stanyan Bigg (1828–1865) was an English poet of the Spasmodic School. His major works are The Sea-King; A metrical romance, in six cantos (1848)...
plant and especially the root were considered to have analgesic, anti-spasmodic, diuretic and expectorant properties. It contains small amounts of saponins...
Alexander Smith (born 1829), Scottish Spasmodicpoet January 20 – Nathaniel Parker Willis (born 1806), American author, poet and editor February 2 – Forceythe...
James Bailey (died 1902), English Spasmodicpoet April 23 – Douglas Smith Huyghue (died 1891), Canadian and Australian poet, fiction writer, essayist and...
Somerville Laurie, educationalist (died 1909) 31 December – Alexander Smith, Spasmodicpoet (died 1867) George Corson, architect (died 1910 in Leeds) George Gordon...
monologues...are cut in favor of sudden, jarring transitions...so that a spasmodic effect is created. Extreme fluctuations in pace, pitch, and tone heighten...
Wyalong for the next 10 years. This itinerant existence allowed Mary only a spasmodic formal education; however, she did receive some on their frequent returns...
fevers, to distinguish it from the mechanic theory of Boerhaave, the spasmodic theory of Hoffman and of Cullen, and the putrid theory of Pringle." He...
weighting to RBD and 123I-MIBG myocardial scintigraphy. The British author and poet Mervyn Peake died in 1968 and was diagnosed posthumously as a probable case...
the other." Ray Fox-Cumming of Record Mirror described the sound as "spasmodic, awkward, frustrating" and having "a joyless energy". In The Philadelphia...
editor, historian and educator Alexander Smith (1829–1867), poet, one of the "Spasmodic School" Alexander McCall Smith (born 1948), author of The No...
co-emperor Alexios IV had grown during the preceding months of tension and spasmodic violence in and around Constantinople. The Byzantine Senate elected a...
comparative religion. Thereafter attempts at an authentic Egyptian setting were spasmodic, until the start of the 19th century, with the advent of modern Egyptology...
Despite some instances of armed confrontations, the peasants uprising was spasmodic in their actions and lacked any systemically planned offensives in the...
the proletarians in several advanced countries', but 'the uneven and spasmodic character of the development of the various capitalist countries ... leads...
farmers. Its medician uses are as anti depressant, anti septic, anti Spasmodic, Aphrodisiac, Sedativeand Uterine.Jasmine. Jasmine of the family Oleaceae...
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