British Romantic-Era Poetry British Romantic-Era Poetry
English 4/802L
Spring 2013
Stephen C.
Behrendt
319 Andrews; 472-1806
office: 11-1230 TR,
and by appointment
John Constable. Helmingham Dell. 1825-26.
— Page numbers refer to Romanticism: An Anthology, ed. Duncan Wu. 4th edition.—
Jan 8 T Introduction to the course, the period, the contexts
Internet Resources:
The Romantic Chronology: a year-by-year chronolgy of history, culture, and everyday life.
The Regency Fashion Page: a multi-level website with everything from men's and women's clothing to literature and popular culture, from the 1790s to the 1820s.
English Culture, 1660-1830 (links relating to business, clubs, societies, periodicals customs, games, new plants, foods, and people of the period).
Here is a link to a wonderful website on the history of Britain during the age of George III (1760-1820).
And here is Jack Lynch's resource page for studies and scholarship in Romanticism, including calls for papers.
And Laura Mandell's resource page for on-line materials, including electronic texts.
10 R Introduction, continued
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15 T Charlotte Smith: “Sonnet I” (88), “Sonnet II. Written at the Close of Spring” (89), “Sonnet III. To a Nightingale” (89), “Sonnet IV. To the Moon” (89), “Sonnet VIII. To Spring” (91), “Sonnet XXXVI” (103)
Internet Resources :
Charlotte Smith biography and links. Surprisingly, the Wikipedia entry for Charlotte Smith is very good.
Here is a site that has both the full text and audio files of Smith's Elegiac Sonnets and Other Poems
Herre is Adriana Craciun's website of Romantic-era women writers.
17 R William Blake: Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience
– read all the Songs in the anthology, pp. 186-96
– Hannah More: “The Story of Sinful Sally” (76)
Internet Resources:
Here is a good place to start for information about Hannah More.
Here is The William Blake Archive, where you can compare different copies of his illuminateed poems and see more of his visual art.
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22 T Blake: Songs, Letter to the Revd Dr Trusler (245)
24 R Blake: Visions of the Daughters of Albion
– Anna Letitia Barbauld: “The Rights of Woman” (44)
– Mary Wollstonecraft: from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, all selections (284-90)
Internet Resources:
The excellent Anna Laetitia Barbauld website.
Here is a link for Mary Wollstonecraft.
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29 T Mary Robinson: “A London Summer Morning” (253), “The Haunted Beach” (255), “The Savage of Aveyron” (261)
– Barbauld: “A Summer Evening’s Meditation” (37)
Internet Resources:
A starting point for Mary Robinson.
31 R William Wordsworth: Advertisement to Lyrical Ballads (337), “Lines left upon a seat in a Yew-Tree...” (359), “Goody Blake and Harry Gill” (370), “Lines written as a small distance from my house” (374), “Simon Lee. . .” (375), “The Last of the Flock” (390), “Anecdote for Fathers” (378), “We are seven” (380), “Lines written in early spring” (382), “Expostulation and Reply” (409), “The Tables Turned” (410), Preface to Lyrical Ballads (506-18 and 536-38)
Internet Resources:
For an excellent, interactive full text of all editions of Lyricals Ballads, with comments and apparatus, click here.
Here is the “official” William Wordsworth site , hosted by The Wordsworth Trust, with lots of interesting visual materials.
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Feb 5 T Wordsworth: “The Thorn” (383), Note to “The Thorn” (518)“The Idiot Boy” (396), “Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey, . . .” (415)
– Robert Southey: “The Idiot” (746), Review of Lyrical Ballads (751-52)
Internet Resources:
Here are some modern views of the ruins of Tintern Abbey.
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7 R Wordsworth: “The Discharged Soldier” (427), “The Ruined Cottage” (431)
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12 T Wordsworth: “The world is too much with us” (545), “Composed upon Westminster Bridge” (546), “London 1802” (548), “Great men have been among us” (549), “Resolution and Independence” (541), “Conclusion” from The River Duddon (591)
– Dorothy Wordsworth: The Grasmere Journals, entries for 3 October 1800 and 15 April 1802 (605-06), “A Cottage in Grasmere Vale” (608), “A Sketch” (609)
Internet Resources:
Here is a link to information about Dorothy Wordsworth.
14 R Wordsworth: “Ode: Intimations of Immortality” (549), “The Solitary Reaper” (560), note On the ‘Ode’ (595)
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19 T Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “Sonnet to the River Otter” (618), “Reflections on Having Left a Place of Retirement” (626), “Religious Musings” (628), “Fears in Solitude” (653)
– William Lisle Bowles: “Sonnet VIII. To the River Itchin” (321)
– William Hazlitt, “My First Acquaintance with Poets” ((794), “Mr Coleridge” (808
Internet Resources
A site for Coleridge and his times and contexts.
A William Hazlitt page, with links.
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21 R Coleridge: “Effusion XXV” and “The Eolian Harp” (arranged as parallel texts, 620-25), “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison” (and letter, parallel texts 632-38), Letter to Thomas Poole (704), Letter to Richard Sharp (705), from Biographia Literaria, excerpts from Chapter 13 (711-12) and Chapter 14 (712-14)
– Charles Lamb: “The Old Familiar Faces” (760), Letter to William Wordsworth (762)
Internet Resources:
What is an Aeolien Harp? Check here.
Want to know what kind of tree Coleridge meant by a “lime-tree”? Click here.
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26 T Coleridge: “Kubla Khan” (parallel texts, 639-44), “Frost at Midnight” (parallel texts, 644-49); “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, “1817 version (714)
– Robinson: “Ode Inscribed to the Infant Son of S. T. Coleridge, Esq.” (257), “Mrs. Robinson to the Poet Coleridge” (259)
28 R Coleridge: “A Letter to Sara Hutchinson” (683), “Dejection: An Ode” (693), “To William Wordsworth” (706) and Letter from S. T. Coleridge to William Wordsworth (709)
– Barbauld: “To Mr. Coleridge” (45)
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Mar 5 T George Gordon, Lord Byron: “Stanzas” (872), “When we two parted” (875), “Fare Thee Well!” (877), “Prometheus” (912), “Darkness” (919), Letter from Lord Byron to Thomas Moore (958), “Messalonghi” (1065)
7 R Byron: Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto the Third (878)
Internet Resources:
A good place to start with Byron.
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12 T Byron: Don Juan, Canto I (959)
14 R Percy Bysshe Shelley: “To Wordsworth” (1081), “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” (1101). “Mont Blanc” (1104), “Ozymandias” (1108)
Internet Resources:
You'll find an excellent starting-point for anything relating to Percy Bysshe Shelley here.
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17 - 24 March —Spring Break—
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26 T Shelley: “Lines Written among the Euganean Hills” (1110), “Stanzas written in Dejection, near Naples” (1119), , “To a Skylark” (1215), “Music, when soft voices die” (1266), “When passion’s trance is overpast” (1266), “To Edward Williams” (1266), “With a Guitar, to Jane” (1268)
28 R Shelley: England in 1819” (1134), “Ode to the West Wind” (1131), extracts from A Defence of Poetry (1233-47)
Internet Resources:
For the full text of A Defence of Poetry, click here.
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Apr 2 T Shelley: Adonais (1248)
4 R Shelley: to be determined
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9 T John Keats: “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” (1396), “Addressed to Haydon” (1397), “On the Grasshopper and the Cricket” (1398), opening passage from Endymion (1398-99), Letter from John Keats to Benjamin Bailey (1403-04), Letter to John Hamilton Reynolds (1423-24), Letter to Richard Woodhouse (1424-25)
– [James Henry] Leigh Hunt: “On the Grasshopper and the Cricket” (825)
– Benjamin Robert Haydon: [The Immortal Dinner] (860)
Internet Resources:
Starting-point for John Keats.
For images of Keats and of his letters and manuscripts, go here.
11 R Keats: “Ode to Psyche” (1462), “Ode on Melancholy” (1469), “Ode on Indolence” (1470), “To Autumn” (1489)
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16 T Keats: “Ode to a Nightingale” (1464), “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1466), “When I have fears that I may cease to be” (1406)
18 R John Clare: “Sonnet” (1272), “The Flitting” (1278), “The Badger” (1284), “I am” (1286), “An Invite to Eternity” (1286), “Silent Love” (1288)
– Robert Burns: “To a Mouse, ...” (273)
Internet Resources:
Want to hear a nightingale? Click here.
The John Clare page; an excellent portal to Clare and his work.
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23 T Felicia Hemans: “The Bride of the Greek Isle” (1307), “Properzia Rossi” (1315), “The Homes of England” (1359), “The Graves of a Household” (1365) “To Wordsworth” (1362), “The Grave of a Poetess” (1357)
– Letitia Elizabeth Landon: “Stanzas on the Death of Mrs. Hemans” (1520), “On Wordsworth’s Cottage, near Grasmere Lake” (1528)
Internet Resources:
Felicia Hemans starting-point.
Here is an 1863 illustration for Hemans' "Evening Prayer at a Girls' School"
For the full text of Hemans' Records of Woman (1828), click here.
Here is a website to begin with Letitia Elizabeth Landon.
25 R Concluding matters
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