Reading Romantic poetry
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Coleridge argued that the most powerful poems were those "to which we return with the greatest pleasure." Reading Romantic Poetry demonstrates, through careful critical analysis, the ways in which the rich poetry of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries can speak directly to modern audiences. The book introduces readers, often for the first time, to the pleasure of reading Romantic poetry. The famous poets of the period are included: Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Burns and Clare--together with a host of less familiar writers, such as the women poets Smith, Yearsley, Barbauld, More, and Hemans. Reading Romantic Poetry introduces the major themes and preoccupations, the key poems and players, as well as the crucial literary circles and influences of a period convulsed by revolution, prolonged warfare and political crisis.