The Cambridge Companion to British Romantic Poetry

An engaging collection of new essays covering Romantic poetry, its historical and literary contexts, its forms, and its enduring appeal.

James Chandler (Edited by), Maureen N. McLane (Author)

9780521680837, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 4 September 2008

330 pages
25.8 x 15.3 x 1.9 cm, 0.53 kg

'The Cambridge Companion series has been a very successful venture, presenting readers with handy, up-to-date collections of specially commissioned essays by leading scholars on a wide range of authors and topics.' Australian Book Review

More than any other period of British literature, Romanticism is strongly identified with a single genre. Romantic poetry has been one of the most enduring, best loved, most widely read and most frequently studied genres for two centuries and remains no less so today. This Companion offers a comprehensive overview and interpretation of the poetry of the period in its literary and historical contexts. The essays consider its metrical, formal, and linguistic features; its relation to history; its influence on other genres; its reflections of empire and nationalism, both within and outside the British Isles; and the various implications of oral transmission and the rapid expansion of print culture and mass readership. Attention is given to the work of less well-known or recently rediscovered authors, alongside the achievements of some of the greatest poets in the English language: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, Scott, Burns, Keats, Shelley, Byron and Clare.

Introduction: the companionable forms of Romantic poetry James Chandler and Maureen N. McLane
1. The living pantheon of poets in 1820: pantheon or canon? Jeffrey N. Cox
2. Romantic poetry and antiquity Nick Groom
3. Romantic meter and form Susan Stewart
4. Romantic poetry and the standardisation of English Andrew Elfenbein
5. Thinking in verse Simon Jarvis
6. Romantic poetry and the romantic novel Ann Wierda Rowland
7. Wordsworth's Great Ode: Romanticism and the progress of poetry James Chandler
8. Romantic poetry, sexuality, gender Adriana Craciun
9. Poetry peripheries and empire Tim Fulford
10. Romantic poetry and the science of nostalgia Kevis Goodman
11. Rethinking Romantic poetry and history: lyric resistance, lyric seduction William Keach
12. The medium of Romantic poetry Celeste Langan and Maureen N. McLane
13. Romantic poets and contemporary poetry Andrew Bennett
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC], Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD], Poetry [DC]