The transatlantic Thames: Anglo-American tensions on the Victorian “stream of pleasure”

Ruys Smith, Thomas ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9177-9536 (2021) The transatlantic Thames: Anglo-American tensions on the Victorian “stream of pleasure”. Comparative American Studies, 18 (1). pp. 38-58. ISSN 1477-5700

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Abstract

While it is widely understood that rivers took on new symbolic power as avatars of nationalism in the late nineteenth century, less examined is their use as a space for Transatlantic cultural flow, and transnational commentary and critique. This article explores the ways in which a variety of Americans abroad in this period centred the Thames – newly charged with nationalist sentiment – in their accounts of Britain. In particular, it analyses Elizabeth Robins and Joseph Pennell’s travel narrative The Stream of Pleasure, first published as the lead article in the ‘Midsummer Holiday Issue’ of The Century Magazine in 1889, as an exemplary text in which both artist and writer play with the image of the river in ways that chime with much wider Transatlantic debates at this moment.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	4* ,/dk/atira/pure/researchoutput/REFrank/4_
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Art, Media and American Studies (former - to 2024)
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > American Studies Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Area Studies
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	13 Apr 2021 23:46
Last Modified:	25 Oct 2024 23:52
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/79705
DOI:	10.1080/14775700.2021.1873024

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