The Romantic Poetry Handbook

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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 335

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.