©Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies, Edited by Stacey Floyd and Melissa Purdue NINETEENTH-CENTURY GENDER STUDIES ISSUE 13.3 (WINTER 2017) TurŶ of the CeŶtury WoŵeŶ’s Poetry: Skirting the Problems of Periodization By LeeAnne M. Richardson, Georgia State University <1>This essay proposes a paradigm shift in the way we analyze late-nineteenth century ǁoŵeŶs poetƌLJ. The oŶgoiŶg ƌeĐoǀeƌLJ of late-Victorian women poets has both eŶaďled aŶd iŶǀigoƌated the studLJ of ǁoŵeŶs poetƌLJ, aŶd to aĐĐoŵŵodate and understand these Ŷeǁ ǀoiĐes, sĐholaƌs haǀe offeƌed tǁo ŵajoƌ ĐoŶĐeptual Đategoƌies: feŵale aesthetes aŶd Ŷeǁ ǁoŵaŶ poets. These ŵodels haǀe pƌoǀed useful ďut the ŵoƌe sĐholaƌs haǀe ǁoƌked with them, the more they have seen the need for additional or alternate descriptive categories. Addressing periodization and arguing that it is especially problematic in regard to late-century women poets, this essay proposes a new period category—tuƌŶ of the ĐeŶtuƌLJ ǁoŵeŶs poetry—wedded to a new formalist approach. This reconceptualization has multiple benefits: aŶ alteƌŶatiǀe foƌ theoƌiziŶg ǁoŵeŶs poetƌLJ that does Ŷot depeŶd oŶ the doŵestiĐ/poetess model; a non-deterministic period category that does not smooth over contradictions and oppositions; a frame for the recovered voices of women poets that accommodates their differences while accounting for their coherence; and a vision that looks both to the past and toǁaƌd the futuƌe foƌ a Đleaƌeƌ piĐtuƌe of ǁoŵeŶs poetiĐ pƌoduĐtioŶ.; 1) In order to establish the value of looking toward the Edwardian era when interpreting the social and institutional foƌŵs ƌepƌeseŶted iŶ tuƌŶ of the ĐeŶtuƌLJ ǁoŵeŶs poetƌLJ, the essaLJ outliŶes soŵe post -1900 forms and contexts that both emerge from and provide critical frames of reference for poems of the earlier period. The essay offers readings of poems by Dollie Radford and Edith Nesbit to illustrate the ways in which current critical categories fail many ǁoŵeŶs poeŵs, aŶd Đloses with a discussion of works by Alice Meynell, May Kendall, and A. Mary F. Robinson that demonstrate the value of looking both forward and back when interpreting turn of the century ǁoŵeŶs poetƌLJ. <2>Recent re-examinations of Victorian poetry—in Victorian Poetry special issues titled Whitheƌ ViĐtoƌiaŶ PoetƌLJ? aŶd elseǁheƌe—have highlighted the failure of current critical categories to account for late-century poetic production, and more specifically late-century ǁoŵeŶs poetƌLJ.;2) This problem is compounded by the fact that many studies of ViĐtoƌiaŶisŵ eŶd aƌouŶd ϭϴϴϬ, eĐhoiŶg Isoďel AƌŵstƌoŶgs judgŵeŶt that the histoƌLJ of the 1890s and fin-de-siècle poetry seems to belong rather to the history of modernism than to that of ViĐtoƌiaŶ poetƌLJ ;ϰϳϵͿ.;3) Many Modernist writers, however, distanced themselves from late-nineteenth century writers (even though some model Modernists like Yeats, Pound, and