ABSTRACT

First published in 1980. This title provides a critical and historical account of poetry written between 1780 and 1835. The author has been especially concerned to place the great poems and poets of the age in the context of the conventions and traditions in which they wrote, offering new perspectives on familiar works. Poems still famous are examined often in relation to works of a similar kind fashionable at the time but now neglected, and these unconventional groupings throw fresh light on Romantic poetry as a whole. An appendix is included, designed to be read as a supplement to the main text, serving both as a chronology and as a brief guide to works that do not fall within the scope of the main argument. This title will be of interest to students of literature.

chapter 1|24 pages

Deliberate simplicities

chapter 2|25 pages

From terror to wonder

chapter 3|20 pages

The ambiguities of guilt

chapter 4|20 pages

The human predicament

chapter 5|19 pages

Meditations of sympathy

chapter 7|33 pages

Reappraisals of society

chapter 8|31 pages

Unfamiliar ideas

chapter 9|44 pages

Allegorical alternatives

chapter 10|5 pages

Afterword