Book description
The Romanticism that emerged after the American and French revolutions
of 1776 and 1789 represented a new flowering of the imagination and the
spirit, and a celebration of the soul of humanity with its capacity for
love. This extraordinary collection sets the acknowledged genius of
poems such as Blake's 'Tyger', Coleridge's 'Khubla Khan' and Shelley's
'Ozymandias' alongside verse from less familiar figures and women poets
such as Charlotte Smith and Mary Robinson. We also see familiar poets in
an unaccustomed light, as Blake, Wordsworth and Shelley demonstrate
their comic skills, while Coleridge, Keats and Clare explore the Gothic
and surreal. Jonathan Wordsworth is descended from William
Wordsworth's younger brother Christopher. He is Chairman of the
Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere, retired Professor of English Literature at
Oxford, and has edited much of Wordsworth's poetry, including The
Prelude: Four Texts (Penguin). Jessica Wordsworth is Administator of the
Wordsworth Winter School and Grasmere Summer Conference.
