Romanticism and the Self-Conscious Poem

by Michael O'Neill

Overview

This book explores the "self-conscious poem" - that is, a poem concerned with poetry that displays awareness of itself as poetry - in the work of the major Romantic poets, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats. Michael O'Neill's readings freshly illuminate the imaginative distinction of many famous and often-studied poems, and revalue less regarded works. An extended coda looks at some post-Romantic poets, particularly Yeats, Stevens, Auden, and Clampitt, in the light of the book's central theme.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198122852
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	10/02/1997
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	8.70(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

University of Durham

Table of Contents

AcknowledgementsNote on Texts and AbbreviationsIntroductionPART I. The First Generation1. And I staind the water clear: Blake2. The words he uttered . . .: Wordsworth3. That done in air: ColeridgePART 2. The Second Generation4. A being more intense: Byron5. The mind which feeds this verse: Shelley (1)6. The sensitive plant: Evaluation and the Self-Conscious Poem: Shelley (2)7. The reading of an ever-changing tale: Keats (1)8. Writing and History in Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion: Keats (2)CODA. The Post-Romantic Self-Conscious Poem9. Yeats and Stevens: Two Versions of Post-Romantic Self-Consciousness10. Making and Faking: W. H. Auden11. The knowledge of contrast, feeling for light and shade: Amy Clampitt's Voyages: A Homage to John KeatsBiobliographyIndex

Editorial Reviews

"Pleasure is a powerful and revitalising force in this volume....The generosity with which these insights are sprinkled throughout the book is the result both of O'Neill's formidable poetic intelligence and of reading and reflection over a number of years. Fostered by scholarship and slow time Romanticism and the Self-Conscious Poem is a searching work of lasting value. It is in all senses a masterpiece."—The Wordsworth Circle

From the Publisher

Examines the phenomenon of the "self-conscious poem"<-->a poem concerned with poetry or a poem that displays awareness of itself as a poem<-->in the work of major Romantic poets including Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats. Looks at self- consciousness as part of the new status granted to poetry by the Romantics, and suggests that self-consciousness in Romantic poetry often accompanies exploration of, and even anxiety about, poetry's significance. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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