The Rise and Fall of Meter: Poetry and English National Culture, 1860–1930 by Meredith Martin (Review)

hoped to further the moral truths of her novels with the greater religious authority ascribed to nineteenth-century women poets. LaPorte examines The Spanish Gypsy (1864–68), “The Legend of Jubal” (1869), “The Death of Moses,” “A Minor Prophet” (1874), and “O May I Join the Choir Invisible” (1879) to show how Eliot appealed to recycled domestic and feminine tropes (such as the grieving mother), biblical themes and passages, and a higher critical understanding of prophecy to further her humanistic moral vision for the betterment of society. LaPorte’s close readings of a number of important poems by major midVictorian poets, some of which were heretofore underexplored, and his insight into the impact of changing views of the Bible render his work essential to Victorian literary and religious studies. As religion increasingly becomes a major frame of reference for Victorian studies, Victorian Poets and the Changing Bible provides a provocative re-evaluation of the role of religion in the nineteenth century.