The Romantic Poetry Handbook: (Wiley Blackwell Literature Handbooks)

An absorbing survey of poetry written in one of the most revolutionary eras in the history of British literature This comprehensive survey of British Romantic poetry explores the work of six poets whose names are most closely associated with the Romantic era—Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, Keats, Byron, and Shelley—as well as works by other significant but less widely studied poets such as Leigh Hunt, Charlotte Smith, Felicia Hemans, and Letitia Elizabeth Landon. Along with its exceptional coverage, the volume is alert to relevant contexts, and opens up ways of understanding Romantic poetry. The Romantic Poetry Handbook encompasses the entire breadth of the Romantic Movement, beginning with Anna Laetitia Barbauld and running through to Thomas Lovell Beddoes and John Clare. In its central section ‘Readings’ it explores tensions, change, and continuity within the Romantic Movement, and examines a wide range of individual poems and poets through sensitive, attentive and accessible analyses. In addition, the authors provide a full introduction, a detailed historical and cultural timeline, biographies of the poets whose works are featured in the “Readings” section, and a helpful guide to further reading. The Romantic Poetry Handbook is an ideal text for undergraduate and postgraduate study of British Romantic poetry. It also will appeal to every reader with an interest in the Romantics and in poetry generally. 

Table of Contents:
Contents Acknowledgements viii Part 1 Introduction 1 Part 2 Timeline of the Late Eighteenth Century and Romantic Period 21 Part 3 Biographies 47 Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743–1825) 49 Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803–1849) 51 William Blake (1757–1827) 54 Robert Burns (1759–1796) 57 Lord George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) 59 John Clare (1793–1864) 61 Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) 63 Felicia Hemans (1793–1835) 66 (James Henry) Leigh Hunt (1784–1859) 69 John Keats (1795–1821) 72 Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) 74 Thomas Moore (1779–1852) 77 Mary Robinson (1758–1800) 80 Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) 82 Charlotte Smith (1749–1806) 85 Robert Southey (1774–1843) 87 William Wordsworth (1770–1850) 90 Ann Yearsley (1753–1806) 93 Part 4 Readings 95 First?]Generation Romantic Poets 95 Anna Laetitia Barbauld, ‘Epistle to William Wilberforce,  Esq., on the Rejection of the Bill for ­Abolishing the Slave Trade’; ‘The Rights of Woman’; Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, A Poem 97 Charlotte Smith, Elegiac Sonnets 101 Charlotte Smith, Beachy Head 107 Ann Yearsley, ‘Poem on the Inhumanity of the Slave?]trade’; ‘Bristol Elegy’ 110 William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience 115 William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell ; The Book of Urizen ; ‘The Mental Traveller’ 124 Mary Robinson, Sappho and Phaon 132 Robert Burns, Lyrics 137 William Wordsworth and S. T. Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads 144 William Wordsworth, ‘Resolution and Independence’;  ‘Ode: Intimations of Immortality’; ‘Elegiac Stanzas, Suggested  by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm, Painted by Sir George Beaumont’; ‘Surprized by Joy’ 152 William Wordsworth, The Prelude 163 William Wordsworth, The Excursion 174 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Conversation Poems: ‘The Eolian Harp’,  ‘This Lime?]Tree Bower My Prison’, ‘Frost at ­Midnight’,  and ‘Dejection: An Ode’ 179 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ;  Kubla Khan; ‘The Pains of Sleep’; Christabel 187 Robert Southey, Thalaba the Destroyer and The Curse of Kehama 196 Second?]Generation Romantic Poets 203 Thomas Moore, Irish Melodies 205 Leigh Hunt, The Story of Rimini 211 Lord Byron, Lara ; ‘When We Two Parted’; ‘Stanzas to Augusta’; Manfred 215 Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage 223 Lord Byron, Don Juan, Cantos 1–4 232 Percy Bysshe Shelley, Queen Mab ; Alastor;  Laon and Cythna [The Revolt of Islam] 242 Percy Bysshe Shelley, ‘Hymn to Intellectual Beauty’;  ‘Mont Blanc’; ‘Ozymandias’; ‘Ode to the West Wind’;  the late poems to Jane Williams 251 Percy Bysshe Shelley, ­Prometheus Unbound; Adonais;  The Triumph of Life 260 John Keats, Endymion ; ‘Sleep and Poetry’; The Sonnets 268 John Keats, Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion 277 John Keats, The 1820 Volume 284 Third?]Generation Romantic Poets 295 John Clare: Lyrics 297 Felicia Hemans, Records of Woman: With Other Poems 304 Letitia Elizabeth Landon, ‘Love’s Last Lesson’; ‘Lines of Life’;  ‘Lines Written under a Picture of a Girl Burning a Love?]Letter’; ‘Sappho’s Song’; ‘A Child Screening a Dove from a Hawk.  By Stewardson’ 311 Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Death’s Jest?]Book and Lyrics 318 Part 5 Further Reading 325 General Critical Reading 327 Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743–1825) 328 Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803–1849) 328 William Blake (1757–1827) 329 Robert Burns (1759–1796) 329 Lord George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) 329 John Clare (1793–1864) 330 Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) 330 Felicia Hemans (1793–1835) 331 (James Henry) Leigh Hunt (1784–1859) 331 John Keats (1795–1821) 331 Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) 331 Thomas Moore (1779–1852) 332 Mary Robinson (1758–1800) 332 Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) 332 Charlotte Smith (1749–1806) 333 Robert Southey (1774–1843) 333 William Wordsworth (1770–1850) 333 Ann Yearsley (1753–1806) 334 Index

About the Author :
Michael O'Neill (born 1953 in Aldershot, Hampshire) is an English poet, and academic, specialising in the Romantic period and post-war poetry. A graduate of Exeter College, Oxford, O'Neill lectured at Durham University.

Review :
“It is a beautifully written and well-organized textbook, which will be of great value to undergraduates in English departments around the world…O’Neill and Callaghan are to be commended for the deft way they combine close reading and scholarship in these delightful essays” -- The Year’s Work in English Studies, Volume 98 (2019)