This collection offers new perspectives on the connections between politics, identity and representation in art and poetry in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain and Europe. Contributions explore questions such as the following: what was the effect of the reciprocity of political, religious and artistic influence in nineteenth-century Britain and Europe? How were key political moments or movements influenced by or influential on literary and artistic form? How did the styles and forms of the past shape the political expressions of the nineteenth-century present? By what means did politically inflected art and literature shape the emerging construction of national, class or religious identities in the nineteenth century?

Ranging across not only Britain but also France, Germany, Belgium, Finland, Spain and Italy, the essays draw on different discourses and art forms. They all utilise concepts of cultural materialism to shape an understanding of the contingent relationships between national and international public discourse and identity, political change and cultural production as well as the reproduction, translation, influence and dissemination of both politics and culture in art and literature.