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English Romantic Poetry book cover
English Romantic Poetry
1996
First Published
3.93
Average Rating
256
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Encompassing a broad range of subjects, styles and moods, English poetry of the late 18th and early 19th centuries is generally classified under the term "Romantic," suggesting an emphasis on imagination and individual experiance, as well as a preoccupation with such themes as nature, death and the supernatural. This volume contains a rich selection of poems by England's six greatest Romantic poets: William Blake (24 poems, including "The Tyger" and "Auguries of Innocence"), William Wordsworth (27 poems, including "Ode: Intimations of Immortality" and "I wandered lonely as a cloud"), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (10 poems, including "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "Kubla Khan"), Lord Byron (16 poems, including "The Prisoner of Chillon" and selections from Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage), Percy Bysshe Shelley (24 poems, including "Ode to the West Wind" and "Adonais") and John Keats (22 poems, including all the great odes, "Isabelle" and "The Eve of St. Agnes"). For this edition, Stanley Appelbaum has provided a concise Introduction to the Romantic period and brief commentaries on the poets represented. The result is a carefully selected anthology that will be welcomed by lovers of poetry, students and teachers alike.

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Authors

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Author · 53 books

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is widely considered to be among the finest lyric poets of the English language. He is perhaps most famous for such anthology pieces as Ozymandias, Ode to the West Wind, To a Skylark, and The Masque of Anarchy. However, his major works were long visionary poems including Alastor, Adonais, The Revolt of Islam, Prometheus Unbound and the unfinished The Triumph of Life. Shelley's unconventional life and uncompromising idealism, combined with his strong skeptical voice, made him a authoritative and much denigrated figure during his life. He became the idol of the next two or three generations of poets, including the major Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite poets Robert Browning, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Algernon Charles Swinburne, as well as William Butler Yeats and poets in other languages such as Jibanananda Das and Subramanya Bharathy. He was also admired by Karl Marx, Henry Stephens Salt, and Bertrand Russell. Famous for his association with his contemporaries John Keats and Lord Byron, he was also married to novelist Mary Shelley.

Lord Byron
Lord Byron
Author · 52 books

George Gordon Byron (invariably known as Lord Byron), later Noel, 6th Baron Byron of Rochdale FRS was a British poet and a leading figure in Romanticism. Amongst Byron's best-known works are the brief poems She Walks in Beauty, When We Two Parted, and So, we'll go no more a roving, in addition to the narrative poems Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan. He is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential, both in the English-speaking world and beyond. Byron's notabilty rests not only on his writings but also on his life, which featured upper-class living, numerous love affairs, debts, and separation. He was notably described by Lady Caroline Lamb as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know". Byron served as a regional leader of Italy's revolutionary organization, the Carbonari, in its struggle against Austria. He later travelled to fight against the Ottoman Empire in the Greek War of Independence, for which Greeks revere him as a national hero. He died from a fever contracted while in Messolonghi in Greece.

John Keats
John Keats
Author · 65 books

Rich melodic works in classical imagery of British poet John Keats include " The Eve of Saint Agnes ," " Ode on a Grecian Urn ," and " To Autumn ," all in 1819. Work of the principal of the Romantic movement of England received constant critical attacks from the periodicals of the day during his short life. He nevertheless posthumously immensely influenced poets, such as Alfred Tennyson. Elaborate word choice and sensual imagery characterize poetry, including a series of odes, masterpieces of Keats among the most popular poems in English literature. Most celebrated letters of Keats expound on his aesthetic theory of "negative capability." Wikipedia page of the author

William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
Author · 63 books

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was a major English romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their 1798 joint publication, Lyrical Ballads. Wordsworth's masterpiece is generally considered to be The Prelude, an autobiographical poem of his early years, which the poet revised and expanded a number of times. The work was posthumously titled and published, prior to which, it was generally known as the poem "to Coleridge". Wordsworth was England's Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850.

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