The Late Poetry of the Lake Poets
Romanticism Revised

This book explores the significance of the late poems of the Lake Poets and the establishment of their later careers.

Tim Fulford (Author)

9781107033979, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 31 October 2013

327 pages, 15 b/w illus.
23.8 x 15.7 x 2 cm, 0.61 kg

'… the book describes not the experience of any given reader but something like the reanimated or reimagined experiences of the authors themselves, which makes it a remarkable act of critical sympathy and engagement.' Brian Goldberg, Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era

The long-established association of Romanticism with youth has resulted in the early poems of the Lake Poets being considered the most significant. Tim Fulford challenges the tendency to overlook the later poetry of no longer youthful poets, which has had the result of neglecting the Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey of the 1820s and leaving unexamined the three poets' rise to popularity in the 1830s and 1840s. He offers a fresh perspective on the Lake Poets as professional writers shaping long careers through new work, as well as the republication of their early successes. The theme of lateness, incorporating revision, recollection, age and loss, is examined within contexts including gender, visual art, and the commercial book market. Fulford investigates the Lake Poets' later poems for their impact now, while also exploring their historical effects in their own time and counting the costs of their omission from Romanticism.

Introduction
Part I. Southey: 1. The Lake Poets and the picturesque view: the visual turn in the late Southey
2. Poetic hells and pacific edens: Southey's Tale of Paraguay and Byron's The Island
Part II. Coleridge: 3. Print and performance: Christabel: Kubla Khan, A Vision
The Pains of Sleep
4. The language of love in the late Coleridge: annual verse and collected poetry
Part III. Wordsworth: 5. Naming the abyss: Wordsworth and the sound of power
6. Picturing the prehistoric: Wordsworth's sightseeing.

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