English Literature

Unit V: The Romantics

Week 21
Please read:

"Reading Romantic Poetry", p. 448.

This week we come upon the two great poets of the early part of the English Romantic movement; they burst upon the scene chiefly with the publication of the volume entitled Lyrical Ballads in 1798. This was after the American revolution (1775-85) and even after the French (1789-92). It was not until the 1802 edition of Lyrical Ballads, however, that the theoretical underpinnings of the Romantic program were laid out in the Preface, now considered the charter document of English Romanticism.

William Wordsworth:

• "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey", pp. 450-452.
• "My Heart Leaps Up", p. 454.
• "Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802", p. 454.
• "It Is a Beauteous Evening", pp. 454-455.
• "The World is Too Much with Us", p. 457.
• "London, 1802", p. 457.
• "Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood", p. 458-461.
• The Prelude, selection, pp. 534-538.

The Bartleby site linked here contains the Complete Poetical Works of Wordsworth.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
For an overview of his literary critical works, etc., look here; for some of his poetry, look here.

• "Kubla Khan", p. 464.
• "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", p. 466-483.

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