Victorian women poets lived in a time when religion was a vital aspect of their identities. Cynthia Scheinberg examines Anglo-Jewish (Grace Aguilar and Amy Levy) and Christian (Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Rossetti) women poets, and argues that there are important connections between the discourses of nineteenth-century poetry, gender and religious identity. Further, Scheinberg argues that Jewish and Christian women poets had a special interest in Jewish discourse; calling on images from Judaism and the Hebrew Scriptures, their poetry created complex arguments about the relationships between Jewish and female artistic identity. She suggests that Jewish and Christian women used poetry as a site for creative and original theological interpretation, and that they entered into dialogue through their poetry about their own and each other's religious and artistic identities. This book's interdisciplinary methodology calls on poetics, religious studies, feminist literary criticism, and little read Anglo-Jewish primary sources.

"This timely book offers refreshing new angles with which to explore women's poetry in the Victorian period, and it will be of great use to future scholars and students working on this field." Victorian Institute Journal

"[Scheinberg's] book will enrich the study of Victorian poetry, Anglo-Jewish literature, and women's religious identity." Victorian Studies

"...a scholarly but readable book on four women poets of Victorian England, two Jewish and two Christian." Mills Quarterly

"[T]his is an important study, sure to engage anyone interested in women poets, devotional writing, or Christian-Jewish relations in the 19th century. Recommended." Choice

"What Scheinberg offers in this committed feminist study is an admixture of exegesis, interpretation, and literary criticism... Scheinberg illustrates and exemplifies in detailed fashion the creativity and complexity of the four poets' theology and poetry." Nineteenth Century Studies