LibGuides: Romantic British Literature: Books & eBooks

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Anna Letitia Barbauld : New Perspectives Anna Letitia Barbauld: New Perspectives is the first collection of essays on poet and public intellectual Anna Letitia Barbauld (1743-1825). By international scholars of eighteenth-century and Romantic British literature, these new essays survey Barbauld's writing from early to late: her versatility as a stylist, her poetry, her books for children, her political writing, her performance as editor and reviewer. They explore themes of sociability, materiality, and affect in Barbauld's writing, and trace her reception and influence. Rooted in enlightenment philosophy and ethics and dissenting religion, Barbauld's work exerted a huge impact on the generation of Wordsworth and Coleridge, and on education and ideas about childhood far into the nineteenth century. William McCarthy's introduction explores the importance of Barbauld's work today, and co-editor Olivia Murphy assesses the commentary on Barbauld that followed her rediscovery in the early 1990s. Anna Letitia Barbauld: New Perspectives is the indispensible introduction to Barbauld's work and current thinking about it.
Aspects of Byron's Don Juan Aspects of Byron's Don Juan is, in part, a proceedings volume from the 2012 conference held by the Newstead Byron Society at Nottingham Trent University. Speakers represented in the book include Malcolm Kelsall, Peter Cochran, Diego Saglia and Itsuyo Higashinaka. Topics range from the politics of Don Juan, and its treatment of women, to its comic rhymes. One section is devoted to the poem's importance in the literatures of Spain and Russia, another to the vast catalogue of Byron's prose sources (from cannibalism to cookery books), and a final section to the important role played by Mary Shelley in copying most of the poem for the printer.The editor's introduction describes the enormous literary tradition of which Don Juan forms a vital continuation, from Pulci's Morgante Maggiore, via Rabelais, Cervantes, and Montaigne, to the novelists Sterne, Smollett and Fielding, all of whom Byron adored. Another chapter concerns the differing ways in which Don Juan has been treated by other artists, from Tirso de Molina, via E. T. A. Hoffman, to Johnny Depp.
Burke to Byron, Barbauld to Baillie, 1790-1830 Definitions of the Romantic period have undergone considerable change in the last few years. Beyond the careers of the 'Big Six' (Blake, Wordsworth, Byron, Coleridge, Shelley and Keats), critics have begun to recognise a much fuller range of writers flourishing in the second half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth. Who were these other writers whose popularity threatened the fame of Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron? What happens to our understanding of canonical authors when we place them in the context of the print culture of their own time? This book is an accessible and stimulating account of the recent vital changes in critical perceptions of Romanticism. It will enable students and teachers to navigate the new diversities and complexities of Romantic studies, providing a fresh, readable reassessment of a controversial and exciting period.
The Cambridge Introduction to William Wordsworth William Wordsworth is the most influential of the Romantic poets, and remains widely popular, even though his work is more complex and more engaged with the political, social and religious upheavals of his time than his reputation as a 'nature poet' might suggest. Outlining a series of contexts - biographical, historical and literary - as well as critical approaches to Wordsworth, this Introduction offers students ways to understand and enjoy Wordsworth's poetry and his role in the development of Romanticism in Britain. Emma Mason offers a completely up-to-date summary of criticism on Wordsworth from the Romantics to the present and an annotated guide to further reading. With definitions of technical terms and close readings of individual poems, Wordsworth's experiments with form are fully explained. This concise book is the ideal starting point for studying Lyrical Ballads, The Prelude, and the major poems as well as Wordsworth's lesser known writings.
A Companion to Jane Austen Reflecting the dynamic and expansive nature of Austen studies, A Companion to Jane Austen provides 42 essays from a distinguished team of literary scholars that examine the full breadth of the English novelist's works and career. Provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date array of Austen scholarship Functions both as a scholarly reference and as a survey of the most innovative speculative developments in the field of Austen studies Engages at length with changing contexts and cultures of reception from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries
Critical Companion to Jane Austen : A Literary Reference to Her Life and Work Jane Austen has been one of the world's most popular writers for 200 years and is best known for her works ""Pride and Prejudice"", ""Emma"", and ""Sense and Sensibility"". Taught in high school and college classes across the country and appealing to both scholars and general readers, her novels, many of which have been adapted into popular films, continue to be best sellers today.""Critical Companion to Jane Austen"" examines her life and works, and includes critical analyses of the themes within her writing, as well as entries on related topics and relevant people, places, and influences.
Critical Insights: Jane Austen
English Romantic Poetry From Blake to Coleridge, and Wordsworth to Shelley, this volume provides a critical overview on the poets who defined the English Romantic period. Specific topics such as the forms and characteristics of English Romantic poetry are addressed.
The Life of Walter Scott John Sutherland's new critical biography is an undertaking of major importance in which he penetrates into the darker areas of Scott's life in a sceptical (yet sympathetic) spirit,
Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley Pioneers in life writing, Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), and Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein (1818 ), are now widely regarded as two of the leading writers of the Romantic period. They are both responsible for opening up new possibilities for women in genres traditionally dominated by men. This volume brings together essays on Wollstonecraft's and Shelley's life writing by some of the most prominent scholars in Canada, Australia, and the United States. It also includes a full-length play by award-winning Canadian playwright Rose Scollard. Together, the essays and the play explore the connections between mother and daughter, between writing and life, and between criticism and creation. They offer a new understanding of two important writers, of a literary period, and of emergent modes of life writing. Essayists include Judith Barbour, Betty T. Bennett, Anne K. Mellor, Charles E. Robinson, Eleanor Ty, and Lisa Vargo. Among the works discussed are Wollstonecraft's Vindication, Letters from Norway, and Maria; or, The Wrongs of Woman; William Godwin's Memoirs of Wollstonecraft; and Shelley's Frankenstein, The Last Man, Ladore, and Rambles in Germany and Italy.
Poems and Songs by Robert Burns Robert Burns (1759 – 1796) called himself "an Aeolian harp strung to every wind of heaven." His first volume of poems, entitled Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, was published in 1786. An immediate success, it established Burns's poetic reputation, which has grown over two centuries to the point where he is not only the Scottish national poet but the object of a cult unique in British poetry. The present volume contains 43 of his finest poems and songs, reprinted unabridged from an authoritative tenth-century edition. Included are "The Twa Dogs," a deft satire of the Scottish upper classes; "To a Mouse," one of the poet's best known, most charming works; "Address to the Unco Guid," an attack on Puritan hypocrisy; "Holy Willie's Prayer," one of the great verse-satires of all times; as well as such favorites as "The Cotter's Saturday Night," "To a Mountain Daisy," "The Holy Fair," "Address to the Deil," "The Death and Dying Words of Poor Mailie," and many more. In addition to his poetic undertakings, Burns almost single-handedly preserved and revived the traditional Scottish song, and this volume includes a rich selection of these works: "A Red, Red Rose," "Auld Lang Syne," "Comin' thro' the Rye," "My Heart's in the Highlands," "My Love, She's But a Lassie Yet," and a host of others.
Reading John Keats John Keats (1795-1821), one of the best-loved poets of the Romantic period, is ever alive to words, discovering his purposes as he reads - not only books but also the world around him. Leading Keats scholar Susan J. Wolfson explores the breadth of his works, including his longest ever poem Endymion; subsequent romances, Isabella (a Boccaccio tale with a proto-Marxian edge admired by George Bernard Shaw), the passionate Eve of St Agnes and knotty Lamia; intricate sonnets and innovative odes; the unfinished Hyperion project (Keats's existential rethinking of epic agony); and late lyrics involved with Fanny Brawne, the bright (sometimes dark) star of his last years. Illustrated with manuscript pages, title-pages, and two portraits, Reading John Keats investigates the brilliant complexities of Keats's imagination and his genius in wordplay, uncovering surprises and new delights, and encouraging renewed respect for the power of Keats's thinking and the subtle turns of his writing.
Romanticism Romanticism was a revolutionary intellectual and artistic movement which generated some of the most popular and influential texts in British and American literary history. This clear and engaging guide introduces the history, major writers and critical issues of this crucial era. This fully updated second edition includes: Discussion of a broad range of writers including William Blake, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, Ralph Waldo Emerson, H.D. Thoreau, Frederick Douglas A new chapter on American Romanticism Discussion of the romantic sublime or romantic imagination An engagement with critical debates such as postcolonialism, gender studies and ecocriticism.
Romanticism, Lyricism, and History Argues against the persistent view of Romantic lyricism as inherently introspective by relating the poems of William Wordsworth, John Clare, and Charlotte Smith, as well as the letters and prose works of Dorothy Wordsworth, to their historical and literary contexts.
Romanticism and Revolution Romanticism and Revolution: A Readerpresents an anthology ofthe key texts that both defined the debate over the FrenchRevolution during the 1790s and influenced the Romantic authors. Presents readings chronologically to allow readers toexperience the unfolding of the debate as it occurred in the1790s Provides an accessible and in-depth sampling of the majorcontributors to the Revolution debate, from Price, Burke, and Paineto Wollstonecraft and Godwin 
Romanticism and the Human Sciences : Poetry, Population, and the Discourse of the Species This innovative study examines the dialogue between British Romantic poetry and the human sciences of the period. Maureen McLane reveals how Romantic writers participated in a new-found consciousness of human beings as a species, engaging with major discourses on moral philosophy, political economy and anthropology by preeminent theorists such as Malthus, Godwin and Burke. The book provides original readings of canonical works, including Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Percy Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, and has much to say about the place of Romantic poetry within its culture.
Romantic Women Writers, Revolution and Prophecy Convinced that the end of the world was at hand, many Romantic women writers assumed the role of the female prophet to sound the alarm before the final curtain fell. Orianne Smith argues that their prophecies were performative acts in which the prophet believed herself to be authorized by God to bring about social or religious transformation through her words. Utilizing a wealth of archival material across a wide range of historical documents, including sermons, prophecies, letters and diaries, Orianne Smith explores the work of prominent women writers - from Hester Piozzi to Ann Radcliffe, from Helen Maria Williams to Anna Barbauld and Mary Shelley - through the lens of their prophetic influence. As this book demonstrates, Romantic women writers not only thought in millenarian terms, but they did so in a way that significantly alters our current critical view of the relations between gender, genre, and literary authority in this period.

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Backgrounds to English Literature: The Romantics Romanticism emphasized feelings, imagination, idealism, and nature over rationalism, logic, and urban life. This volume investigates the origins of romanticism, the age of revolution, and the economic, social, and artistic developments as reflected in the work of Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley, Coleridge, Keats, Byron, and others.
The Hidden Wordsworth: Poet, Lover, Rebel, Spy Based on new research in government archives in Britain and France, school and university records and intimate letters, this book is a revealing account of a young poet who lived a life even Byron would have envied. In the narrative, the poet William Wordsworth emerges as a man of action during his youth and early manhood, the time of his life that has been obscured by his more august reputation as a philosophical Nature Poet. The text aims to break through the carefully crafted but frequently misleading accounts of his youth that he created in his later years. It explores Wordsworth's links with radical British reformists, French revolutionary leaders and journalists, and reveals Wordsworth as an agent of the newly formed British secret service on the Continent and at home.
John Keats Romantic poet, John Keats was only 25 when he died of tuberculosis, but his work has achieved canonical status. Poet and critic Matthew Arnold said of Keats, In the faculty of naturalistic interpretation, in what we call natural magic, he ranks with Shakespeare. Keats' more recognizable poems include Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to a Nightingale, and Ode on Melancholy.
The Making of the Poets: Byron and Shelley in Their Time Leaving no stone unturned in this illuminating portrait of Byron and Shelley’s formative years, Ian Gilmour’s entertaining dual biography explores the early lives of these two rebellious poets as they pursued freedom from traditional authority—in poetry, in politics, and in love. Born at a time of political and intellectual upheaval, the two well-born heretics were at ideological odds with the establishment even as boys.
Marriage, Writing, and Romanticism : Wordsworth and Austen After War Marriage, Writing, and Romanticism studies marriage in two sets of literary texts from the Regency decade: the novels of Jane Austen--who avoided marriage in her own life but seems to have written about nothing else--and a set of non-canonical and generally unfamiliar poems by William Wordsworth, who seems never to turn to the subject of his own marriage.With other Romantic writers who also figure in this study, Austen and Wordsworth confronted the impossibility of writing about anything other than marriage and the imperative either to celebrate or condemn it. Thanks to the latest scholarly editions of Wordsworth, Walker introduces previously undiscussed material.Walker reads conjugality as the compulsory ground of modern identity, an Enlightenment legacy we still grapple with today, and offers new perspectives on literature through the writing of Austen and Wordsworth and theories of marriage in Godwin, Wollstonecraft, Hegel, Kierkegaard, and, in our time, Adam Phillips and Stanley Cavell.
Poetry and Politics in the Cockney School: Keats, Shelley, Hunt, and their circle Jeffrey N. Cox refines our conception of 'second generation' Romanticism by placing it within the circle of writers around Leigh Hunt that came to be known as the 'Cockney School'. Offering a theory of the group as a key site for cultural production, Cox challenges the traditional image of the Romantic poet as an isolated figure by recreating the social nature of the work of Shelley, Keats, Hunt, Hazlitt, Byron, and others, as they engaged in literary contests, wrote poems celebrating one another, and worked collaboratively on journals and other projects. Cox also recovers the work of neglected writers such as John Hamilton Reynolds, Horace Smith, and Cornelius Webb as part of the rich social and cultural context of Hunt's circle. This 1999 book not only demonstrates convincingly that a 'Cockney School' existed, but shows that it was committed to putting literature in the service of social, cultural, and political reform.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge Coleridge's poetry often overshadows the brilliance of the other genres and forms of writing that occupied his interests. Classic works such as Kubla Khan have taken their place among the most accomplished poems written in the English language. This title offers a selection of contemporary critical commentary on the author.

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Defining Documents in World History: The 19th Century (1801–1900) The 19th century was an era of rapidly accelerating scientific discovery and invention that laid the groundwork for the technological advances of the 20th century as well as important social and political reforms. This 2-volume set offers in-depth analysis of a broad range of historical documents, including legal codes, letters, speeches, constitutions, reports, and books that impacted the world throughout the nineteenth century, from the Napoleonic Code to Darwin's Descent of Man.
Great Events from History: The Nineteenth Century These four volumes provide coverage on the most important developments from 1801 through 1900, including the struggle to end slavery, the Boxer Rebellion in China, and the expansion of democracy in the Western world.