Although British women poets such as Charlotte Turner Smith, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, and Felicia Hemans were influential and widely acknowledged during the Romantic period in England, only within recent years have scholars and teachers begun to rediscover, study, and teach the works of these prolific women and their contemporaries. This process of recovery brings with it, of course, impressive challenges for instructors wishing to introduce these poets and their work into the classroom: locating reliable and accessible editions, incorporating new writers into already crowded syllabi, and dealing with entrenched notions of the nature and scope of Romanticism that are directly challenged by the inclusion of the women poets in the expanded parameters of the Romantic literary community.
In 25 essays, the contributors to this volume have undertaken to discuss how they have approached the dramatic remapping of the Romantic literary landscape that has been necessitated by these and other recent developments in Romantics studies. These essays discuss strategies for teaching the poets individually and alongside other writers; exploring their works from various critical and theoretical perspectives; presenting the authors in classroom contexts such as first-year, survey, and advanced courses; and using archival and technological resources to enhance classroom work.
An additional introduction and bibliographical essay surveys available resources and examines the rapidly expanding body of critical and theoretical discussion of these writers.
Co-editors: Stephen C. Behrendt and Harriet Kramer Linkin
New York: Modern Language Association, 1997