Professor Anna Barton

School of English

Reader in Victorian Literature, Co-Director of the Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies

English Anna Barton
Profile picture of English Anna Barton
a.j.barton@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 8483
Jessop West

Full contact details

Professor Anna Barton
School of English
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA
Profile

I joined the School of English at Sheffield in 2010 having previously taught at Keele University.

My research and teaching focuses on the literature, especially the poetry, of the nineteenth century. My work is informed by my interest in the way poetry understands its relationship with its historical moment and the ways it worries about and seeks to assert its ability to intervene into the politics, culture and philosophy of its day. My PhD (at the University of Glasgow) addressed these questions via a study of the names and acts of naming in Tennyson's poetry. I developed this project into my first monograph, Tennyson's Name: Identity and Responsibility in the Poetry of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Ashgate, 2008). My most recent publication, Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Liberal Thought: Forms of Freedom, explores the interplay between the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Arthur Hugh Clough, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Robert Browning and Matthew Arnold and the rise of modern liberalism in Victorian Britain. 

My work on Tennyson also led me to develop a research interest in his friend, Edward Lear and in traditions of nonsense in literature and beyond.

I am currently developing a new research project focusing on the life and work of Mary Elizabeth Coleridge and her circle.

Research interests

My primary research interests lie in nineteenth-century literature, particularly Victorian poetry. I have published work on a range of poets including Tennyson, Swinburne, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Arthur Hugh Clough and Edward Lear.

I am interested in the relationship between poetry and other kinds of intellectual and cultural production. My most recent monograph, Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Liberal Thought: Forms of Freedom (Palgrave, 2017) seeks to read nineteenth-century poetry through the lens of liberal philosophy.

My next project will focus on the life and work of Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, late nineteenth-century poet, novelist and essayist. It will trace the development of Coleridges career and the network of friends and associates that influenced her work.

A second focus of my research is Nonsense Literature. With James Williams (University of York), I am co-editor of the Edinburgh Companion to Nonsense (under contract with Edinburgh University Press).

I am co-Director of the  here at Sheffield and I am also Series Editor of , published by Manchester University Press, Commissioning Editor of the  and member of the editorial board of the Tennyson Association.

Publications

Books

  • Barton A (2017) . London: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Barton A (2017) The Poetry of Christina Rossetti.
  • Barton A (2012) . Edinburgh University Press.

Edited books

  • (Ed.) (2021) The Edinburgh Companion to Nonsense..
  • Smith A & Barton A (Ed.) (2017) Interventions: Rethinking the Nineteenth Century. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Journal articles

  • Barton A (2024) . Victorian Studies, 66(4), 609-634.
  • Barton A & Williams J (2021) Introduction: Companionable Nonsense. Edinburgh Companion to Nonsense, 1-10.
  • Barton A (2020) Hughes, Linda K. ed, The Cambridge Companion to Victorian Womens Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. 308 pp. Nineteenth Century Gender Studies, 16(3).
  • Barton A (2019) Will the loom not cease whirring?: Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Mary E. Coleridge. Tennyson Research Bulletin, 11(3), 218-231.
  • Barton A (2019) INVENTING EDWARD LEAR. TLS-THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT(6072), 26-26.
  • Barton A (2016) . Romanticism, 22(3), 289-298.
  • Barton A (2014) . Victorian Literature and Culture, 42(2), 251-266.
  • Barton (2014) . Victorian Studies, 56(2), 327-327.
  • Barton A (2011) Tennyson Among the Poets: Bicentenary Essays. NINETEENTH-CENTURY CONTEXTS-AN INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL, 33(4), 402-404.
  • Baker W, Barton A, Wright J, Easley A & Finkelstein D (2010) . The Year's Work in English Studies, 89(1), 679-789.
  • Baker W, Reinert L, Barton A, Easley A & Finkelstein D (2009) . The Year's Work in English Studies, 88(1), 770-866.
  • Barton A (2009) . Literature Compass, 6(3), 799-809.
  • Barton A (2009) . Victorian Poetry, 47(1), 313-330.
  • Baker W, Reinert L, Barton A, Blair K, Easley A & Finkelstein D (2008) . The Year's Work in English Studies, 87(1), 761-862.
  • Barton AJ (2008) . Victorian Poetry, 46(1), 19-35.
  • Barton AJ (2007) . Victorian Literature and Culture, 35(2), 489-500.
  • Barton AJ (2006) . Victorian Poetry, 44(2), 135-152.
  • Barton AJ (2004) "Eternal honour to his name": Tennyson's Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington and Victorian memorial aesthetics. Victorian 壅翌腦瞳letter(106), 1-8.
  • Barton A () Editing mary Elizabeth Coleridge: The Lyric as Archive. Victorian studies, 66(4), 609-634.

Book chapters

  • Barton A (2021) Doubtful Girls and Silly Women: Nonsense and Gender, Edinburgh Companion to Nonsense (pp. 247-263).
  • Barton AJ (2017) In Barton AJ (Ed.), Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Liberal Thought: Forms of Freedom (pp. 25-81). Palgrave
  • Smith A & Barton A (2017) , Interventions Manchester University Press
  • Barton A (2017) Locke in pentameters: Victorian poetry after (or before) posthumousness, Interventions Rethinking the Nineteenth Century (pp. 53-71).
  • Barton AJ (2017) Poetry, as I comprehend the word: Charlotte Bront禱s lyric afterlife In Regis A & Wynne D (Ed.), Charlotte Bront禱: Legacies and Afterlives (pp. 145-163). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
  • Barton A (2017) , Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Liberal Thought (pp. 129-178). Palgrave Macmillan UK
  • Barton A (2017) , Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Liberal Thought (pp. 179-231). Palgrave Macmillan UK
  • Barton A (2017) , Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Liberal Thought (pp. 83-128). Palgrave Macmillan UK
  • Barton A (2017) , Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Liberal Thought (pp. 1-23). Palgrave Macmillan UK
  • Smith A & Barton A (2017) Interventions Rethinking the nineteenth century Introduction, INTERVENTIONS: RETHINKING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (pp. 1-12).
  • Barton A (2017) , Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Liberal Thought (pp. 233-236). Palgrave Macmillan UK
  • Barton AJ (2016) The Sense and Nonsense of Weariness: Edward Lear and Gertrude Stein Read Tennyson In Williams J & Bevis M (Ed.), Edward Lear and the Play of Poetry (pp. 243-260). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Barton A & Bates C (2016) , Literary Bric A Brac and the Victorians from Commodities to Oddities (pp. 49-65).
  • Barton AJ (2015) Perverse Forms: Reading Blake's Decadence In Boyiopoulos K & Sandy M (Ed.), Decadent Romanticism: 1780-1914 (pp. 15-27). Farnha: Routledge.
  • Barton A & Bates C (2013) 'Beautiful things': Nonsense and the museum, Literary Bric A Brac and the Victorians from Commodities to Oddities (pp. 49-65).
  • Barton A () (pp. 1-2). Wiley

Book reviews

  • Anna Barton (2016) . The Modern Language Review, 111(1), 238-238.

Conference proceedings

  • Barton A (2011) By An Evolutionist: Poetic Language in Chambers and Tennyson Anna Barton. EVOLUTION OF LITERATURE: LEGACIES OF DARWIN IN EUROPEAN CULTURES, Vol. 152 (pp 87-99)
Research group

I have supervised and examined doctoral work on the literature of the long nineteenth century and would welcome PhD applicants who are interested in Victorian poetry, with particular reference to its relationship with aspects of nineteenth-century identity and culture.

Teaching activities

Undergradute:

  • LIT 108: Studying Poetry
  • LIT 2000: Genre
  • LIT 270: Nonsense Literature
  • LIT 3100: Romantic and Victorian Poetry
  • LIT 3101: Romantic and Victorian Prose
  • LIT 3046: Sapphos Granddaughters: Poetry by Women, 1789-1901