English Romantic Poetry

Encompassing a broad range of subjects, styles and moods, English poetry of the late 18th and early 19th centuries is generally classified under the term “Romantic,” suggesting an emphasis on imagination and individual experiance, as well as a preoccupation with such themes as nature, death and the supernatural.

This volume contains a rich selection of poems by England’s six greatest Romantic poets: William Blake (24 poems, including “The Tyger” and “Auguries of Innocence”), William Wordsworth (27 poems, including “Ode: Intimations of Immortality” and “I wandered lonely as a cloud”), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (10 poems, including “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and “Kubla Khan”), Lord Byron (16 poems, including “The Prisoner of Chillon” and selections from Don Juan and Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage), Percy Bysshe Shelley (24 poems, including “Ode to the West Wind” and “Adonais”) and John Keats (22 poems, including all the great odes, “Isabelle” and “The Eve of St. Agnes”).

For this edition, Stanley Appelbaum has provided a concise Introduction to the Romantic period and brief commentaries on the poets represented. The result is a carefully selected anthology that will be welcomed by lovers of poetry, students and teachers alike.