1st Edition

Romantic Writings

Edited By Stephen Bygrave Copyright 1996

    Romantic Writings is an ideal introduction to the cultural phenomenon of Romanticism - one of the most important European literary movements and the cradle of 'Modern' culture.
    Here you will find an accessible introduction to the well-known male Romantic writers - Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats. Alongside are chapters dealing with poems by Charlotte Smith, Mary Robinson, Ann Barbauld, Elizabeth Barrett Browning which challenge the idea that these men are the only Romantic writers. As a further counterpoint the book also includes discussion of two German Romantic short stories by Kleist and Hoffman. Throughout, close-reading of texts is matched by an insistence on reading them in their historical context.
    Romantic Writings offers invaluable discussions of issues such as the notion of the Romantic artist; colonialism and the exotic; and the particular situation of women writers and readers.

    Introduction, Part One, 1. Romantic poems and contexts - Stephen Bygrave 2. Versions of British Romantic writing - Stephen Bygrave 3. Defences of poetry - Graham Allen 4. Women writers and readers - Susan Matthews 5. Reading The Prelude - Stephen Bygrave 6. Romantic verse narrative - Graham Allen 7. Reading Byron - Stephen Bygrave 8. Women poets 1780-1830 - Amanda Gilroy 9. Romantic allegory - Graham Allen 10. Colonialism and the exotic - Nigel Leask, 11. Reading Kleist and Hoffmann - Richard Allen, Conclusion - Stephen Bygrave Part Two, Romantic poetry: The I altered - Stuart Curran, The oriental renaissance - Raymond Schwab, The Corsair - Lord Byron, The uncanny - Sigmund Freud, The concept of Romanticism in literary history - Rene Wellek,

    Biography

    Stephen Bygrave