Edwardianism

Noun

Edwardianism (countable and uncountable, plural Edwardianisms)

1. The culture and social climate of the Edwardian era, especially when viewed as a peaceful and romantic golden age of country houses and garden parties.
   • On the domestic scene, the cultural fabric was a mixture of British Edwardianism and U.S. Progressivism; these were both a blessing and a burden in Russell's life.1993, Russell Wilcox Ramsey, Russell Archibald Ramsey, On Law and Country
   • Simultaneously, 1903/4 calls up the myth of “Edwardianism”—the last halcyon days of the nineteenth century before the twentieth begins in 1914, to which Sir Edward Elgar, writing in 1917, pays significant tribute: “Everything good and nice and clean and fresh and sweet is far away never to return."2009, Andrew Britton, Barry Keith Grant, Britton on Film: The Complete Film Criticism of Andrew Britton
2. The literary and artistic styles of the Edwardian era.
   • The modernist intimations accruing as doubts about Rickie's sentimental Edwardianism also undermine Forster's own “sober” Edwardianism.1997, Brian May, The Modernist as Pragmatist, page 50
   • Although Edwardianism was different from modernism, it was never the less radical. Modernism reconstructed the past and asserted a new identity. Edwardianism was thought to favour continuity and tradition, but the fiction often belies this.2008, C. Etherington-Wright, Gender, Professions and Discourse
3. A phrase or habit characteristic of the Edwardian era.