Lizzie Mary Little's 1884 poem, included in the collection Persephone, and Other Poems , comments upon changing views of science, poetry, and truth in the Victorian era. In the poem, Little speaks through the voice of a Romantic Bard of Nature, a Disillusioned Modern Man, a Scientific Humanist, and a Christian. Published close to the end of the Victorian era, the poem draws, both directly and indirectly, from many significant events and literary works of the nineteenth century. For example, Little refers to the end of the Romantic age of poetry (around the 1830’s), and directly references the theory of evolution, which gained prominence with Darwin’s 1859 publication On the Origin of Species. She also alludes to numerous poems by contemporary poets, such as Matthew Arnold’s “Stanzas from the Grand Chartreuse” (1867), and Alfred Lord Tennyson’s In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850). By incorporating many important works of the preceding era, the poem functions as a fin de siècle retrospective of nineteenth century science and poetry. 

To read a related blog post, click here: http://blogs.baylor.edu/19crs/2020/01/15/victorian-voices…oices-of-the-age/