English Language and Literature Commons^™

A paper for the Victorian Institute, 2007, where the theme was Victorian Secrets. Discusses the Tractarian doctrine of reserve in Isaac Williams and John Keble, and the non-reserve of R.H. Froude and F.W. Faber, and then considers the influence of the idea in Tennyson, Arnold, and Clough, concluding that far from the Tractarian doctrine of reserve being specifically Tractarian, ... reserve, concealment, the principled rejection of promiscuous self-expression, is a widespread phenomenon in Victorian culture because of cognitive or epistemological self-consciousness...  The Tractarians, pompous, prickly, self-important, self-deluding, snobbish, ... nonetheless were onto something significant for their age, for many who …