Isobel Armstrong, (born 1937) is a British academic. She is professor emerita of English at Birkbeck, University of London and a senior research fellow of the

Institute of English Studies The Institute of English Studies (abbreviated as IES) is a centre of excellence in the research, promotion and facilitation in the field English Literature and Language. With a specialisation in book history, palaeography and textual scholarsh ...

at the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

. She is a fellow of the

British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars spa ...

. She has been a visiting scholar at many institutions, including at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

in 2016-2017. She is also a published

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

. Armstrong is the younger sister of writer

Diana Wynne Jones Diana Wynne Jones (16 August 1934 – 26 March 2011) was a British novelist, poet, academic, literary critic, and short story writer. She principally wrote fantasy and speculative fiction novels for children and young adults. Although usually d ...

Career

Armstrong is a critic of nineteenth-century

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...

and women's writing. Her publications include ''Novel Politics: Democratic Imaginations in Nineteenth-Century Fiction'' (2017), ''The Radical Aesthetic'' (2000), ''Women's Poetry, Late Romantic to Late Victorian: Gender and Genre'' (1999) and ''Victorian Poetry: Poetry, Politics and Poetics'' (1993). Her book ''Victorian Glassworlds: Glass Culture and the Imagination'' (2008) won the Modern Language Association's James Russell Lowell Prize. In ''Victorian Poetry'': ''Poetry, Politics and Poetics,'' Armstrong contends that poems by women can speak double, using conventionally feminine modes as a “way of looking at conformity from within.” Armstrong uses Adelaide Procter as an exemplar, naming her as someone who “typifies the woman poet's interests at the time.” In her poetry in the '' English Woman’s Journal'' as well as in

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

’ magazine '' Household Words,'' Procter deploys “often simple, often pious, often conventional” modes of address. However, “those conventions are subjected to investigation, questioned, or used for unexpected purposes.” '' Possession: A Romance'', the 1990 Booker Prize-winning novel by A. S. Byatt, was dedicated to Armstrong.

Publications

*''George Eliot, Spinoza and the Emotions'', chapter in A Companion to George Eliot, ed. Amanda Anderson, Harry E. Shaw, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013 *''Steve Connor's Lightness of Being'', Critical Quarterly, 56, July 2014

References

External links

Description at ncse website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Armstrong, Isobel 1937 births Living people British women academics English women poets Academics of Birkbeck, University of London Fellows of the British Academy British literary historians Women literary historians British women historians