General Description and Overview of English 4/802L:
British Poetry of the Romantic Period
The poetry of the English Romantic period involved more than just five (or six) canonical male poets; the period saw the publication of literally thousands of volumes of poetry, by women and men alike. Often these poets knew one another's work (many knew one another personally as well), and so the poems of this period frequently engage in complex intertextual conversations, conversations in which the readers themselves were often knowledgeable participants. Revisionist studies of English Romanticism in the last decade have resulted in a dramatically altered picture of the Romantic period and of its poetry.
This course aims, therefore, to acquaint students with the work of selected British poets of the Romantic period and with the historical, political, cultural, aesthetic, and intellectual milieu which they both reflect and helped to shape. It aims, further, to offer opportunities to discuss, and to think and write about, this poetry, its authors, its aspirations, and its ideological implications within a variety of historical and critical contexts. The larger objective is thus to help students become better, more informed, and more articulate readers and critics of Romantic texts in particular, and of cultural phenomena generally.