Romantic Poets: William Blake to Edgar Allan Poe

by W.H. Auden (Editor), Norman Holmes Pearson (Editor)

This volume, edited and with a superb introduction by W.H. Auden and Norman Holmes Pearson, presents the greatest of the Romantics in all the fullness and ardor of their vision, including William Blake, Robert Burns, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Edgar Allan Poe. What emerges is a panoramic view of a generation of artists struggling to remake the world in their own image—and miraculously succeeding.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Literature, Anthologies, Fiction, British Literature, Collections

456 pages, Leather Bound

First published January 1, 1950

About the author

Poems, published in such collections as Look, Stranger! (1936) and The Shield of Achilles (1955), established importance of British-American writer and critic Wystan Hugh Auden in 20th-century literature.

In and near Birmingham, he developed in a professional middle-class family. He attended English independent schools and studied at Christ church, Oxford. From 1927, Auden and Christopher Isherwood maintained a lasting but intermittent sexual friendship despite briefer but more intense relations with other men. Auden passed a few months in Berlin in 1928 and 1929.

He then spent five years from 1930 to 1935, teaching in English schools and then traveled to Iceland and China for books about his journeys. People noted stylistic and technical achievement, engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and variety in tone, form and content. He came to wide attention at the age of 23 years in 1930 with his first book, Poems ; The Orators followed in 1932.

Three plays in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood in 1935 to 1938 built his reputation in a left-wing politics.

People best know this Anglo for love such as "Funeral Blues," for political and social themes, such as "September 1, 1939," for culture and psychology, such as The Age of Anxiety , and for religion, such as For the Time Being and "Horae Canonicae." In 1939, partly to escape a liberal reputation, Auden moved to the United States. Auden and Christopher Isherwood maintained a lasting but intermittent sexual friendship to 1939. In 1939, Auden fell in lust with Chester Kallman and regarded their relation as a marriage.

From 1941, Auden taught in universities. This relationship ended in 1941, when Chester Kallman refused to accept the faithful relation that Auden demanded, but the two maintained their friendship.

Auden taught in universities through 1945. His work, including the long For the Time Being and The Sea and the Mirror , in the 1940s focused on religious themes. He attained citizenship in 1946.

The title of his long The Age of Anxiety , a popular phrase, described the modern era; it won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1947. From 1947, he wintered in New York and summered in Ischia. From 1947, Auden and Chester Kallman lived in the same house or apartment in a non-sexual relation and often collaborated on opera libretti, such as The Rake's Progress for music of Igor Stravinsky until death of Auden.

Occasional visiting professorships followed in the 1950s. From 1956, he served as professor at Oxford. He wintered in New York and summered in Ischia through 1957. From 1958, he wintered usually in New York and summered in Kirchstetten, Austria.

He served as professor at Oxford to 1961; his popular lectures with students and faculty served as the basis of his prose The Dyer's Hand in 1962.

Auden, a prolific prose essayist, reviewed political, psychological and religious subjects, and worked at various times on documentary films, plays, and other forms of performance. Throughout his controversial and influential career, views on his work ranged from sharply dismissive, treating him as a lesser follower of William Butler Yeats and T.S. Eliot, to strongly affirmative, as claim of Joseph Brodsky of his "greatest mind of the twentieth century."

He wintered in Oxford in 1972/1973 and summered in Kirchstetten, Austria, until the end of his life.

After his death, films, broadcasts, and popular media enabled people to know and ton note much more widely "Funeral Blues," "Musée des Beaux Arts," "Refugee Blues," "The Unknown Citizen," and "September 1, 1939," t

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m appreciating this collection the more I read from it. On the whole, they’ve made fantastic selections, and it’s completely more than I will need for teaching purposes. Much to come back for!

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

the introduction was the best thing about this book - which sounds bad, I know. but it was written by auden and pearson (the other editor not listed here, norman holmes pearson) and it was excellent. for a book called "portable", I found this rather exhaustive. it included blake, burns, clare, coleridge, wordsworth, byron, shelley, keats, emerson, thoreau, and poe, plus a ton of more minor poets. the editors acknowledge that including the americans isn't usually done in an anthology but because these poets fed off each other in one movement, here they are.

I like wordsworth, byron, and keats best, really. they're not the most straightforward, these romantics. there are a lot of convoluted phrases and archaic diction, but I do love the school.

here are a few snippets:

"can poets soothe you, when you pine for bread,
by winding myrtles round your ruin'd shed?" - from 'the village', george crabbe

"there was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
the earth, and every common sight,
to me did seem
apparelled in celestial light,
the glory and the freshness of a dream.
it is not now as it hath been of yore; -
turn wheresoe'er I may,
by night or day,
the things which I have seen I now can see no more."

- from 'ode: intimations of immortality from recollections of early childhood', william wordsworth

"peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep -
he hath awakened from the dream of life -
'tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep
with phantoms an unprofitable strife,
and in mad trance, strike with our spirit's knife
invulnerable nothings."

- from 'adonais' (elegy for keats), percy bysshe shelley

there is a lot of talk lately about things being taken out of context - generally applied by conservatives when liberals are quoting some horrific racist thing a conservative pundit said, which no context could save. I did notice something in here that I often do see truly taken out of context, a line by emerson: "earth laughs in flowers". I see that all the time, just that, which always does sound a bit odd, more 1960s hippie talk than emerson. well, no wonder - the context is a poem criticizing people for claiming to own land:

"where are these men? asleep beneath their grounds.
and strangers, fond as they, their furrows plough.
earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys
earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs;
who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet
clear of the grave."

rather a different vibe when you see it in situ.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took the time to read this and appreciate poetry more since I'm a bit fickle in my poetry preferences and I generally hold high regard for romantic poetry among other schools. It did not disappoint. I came out of reading these with renewed interest in William Blake especially. What could have made this book better? Annotations! Always.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Coleridge > Wordsworth
Byron > Keats > Shelley
Emerson > Thoreau
Blake >>> everyone

[Andy Smith]

Poetry = good.

[Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you have an appreciation for poetry, then this is a must to read through.

[Doug D'jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

William Blake and Robert Burns were ok. The latter was almost incomprehensible what with the Scottish brogue.

I was not familiar with George Crabbe. He is outstanding, I think, and it's a tough call, the best in the book.
There is a very sad and very moving portion of "The Village", from "or will you deem them amply paid in health" to "they taste a final woe and then they rest." It's about youth, aging, and how the elderly are mistreated, from the viewing of a field laborer. Also "Peter Grimes" was very long but so good I couldn't stop reading until the end.

You can keep Wordsworth. I agree with Lord Byron that he's almost completely incomprehensible, though "Ruth" tells a great story. But I really enjoyed Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and the segment from "Kubla Khan" in particular, and Shelley's "Adonais" nearly moved me to tears and I've reread it several times. That Elegy was written to poor John Keats, who died at 26, and who wrote so many beautiful poems. "To Sleep" is very relatable, "La Belle Dame sans Merci" is so very poignant, "The Eve of St. Agnes" absolutely enthralling. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem...

Another poet that I was unfamiliar with is Winthrop Mackworth Praed. I really enjoyed The Vicar. It was very lively and readable and clever. It's followed by Portrait of a Lady in the Exhibition of the Royal Academy and that actually made me laugh out loud. Lastly was Good-Night to the Season. Another pleasure, especially the last stanza.

Yet another poet new to me is John Clare, and his seven or so poems are so good that I reread many. I liked The Frightened Ploughman in particular.

And Emerson?! I expected so much better. It wasn't until the last stanza of Terminus that any of it made any sense to me.

The poem Great Friend by Thoreau made me think of my Margaret. And I really enjoyed his poem Tall Ambrosia... about his shoes!

Whittier wrote Ichabod about Daniel Webster, I learned. It is the best poem in the book. It is so powerful. Here is what Whittier himself had to say about that poem.

This poem was the outcome of the surprise
and grief and forecast of evil consequences
which I felt on reading the seventh of March
speech of Daniel Webster in support of the
`compromise,' and the Fugitive Slave Law.
No partisan or personal enmity dictated it.
On the contrary my admiration of the splendid
personality and intellectual power of the great
Senator was never stronger than when I laid
down his speech, and, in one of the saddest
moments of my life, penned my protest. I
saw, as I wrote, with painful clearness its sure
results, -- the Slave Power arrogant and defiant,
strengthened and encouraged to carry out its
scheme for the extension of its baleful system,
or the dissolution of the Union, the guaranties
of personal liberty in the free States broken down,
and the whole country made the hunting-ground
of slave-catchers. In the horror of such a vision,
so soon fearfully fulfilled, if one spoke at all, he
could only speak in tones of stern and sorrowful
rebuke.

But death softens all resentments, and the
consciousness of a common inheritance of frailty
and weakness modifies the severity of
judgment. Years after, in The Lost Occasion,
I gave utterance to an almost universal regret
that the great statesman did not live to see the
flag which he loved trampled under the feet of
Slavery, and, in view of this desecration, make
his last days glorious in defence of "Liberty
and Union, one and inseparable." [Whittier's note, p. 186.] © by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes

The last poet in the book is Edgar Allan Paul and the first poem by him is The City in the Sea and after I read that poem you could have knocked me down with a feather. It is a masterful poem that paints image after image in your mind's eye. And as you might expect it's rather scary.

And let me close with the last stanza of his Israfel (an angel, "whose heartstrings are like a lute"):

If I could dwell
Where Israfel
Hath dwelt, and he where I,
He might not sing so wildly well
A mortal melody,
While a bolder note than this might swell
From my lyre within the sky.

[CJ Bowen · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Divine Image
The Tyger

Blake: Christian going pantheist/universalist
Burns: nationalism/courtly love
Scott: nationalism/courtly love
Coleridge:

Rambly nature lovers. Many profess direct dependence on Milton, while neglecting to interact with his thematic choice, or indirectly contradicting it through their depictions of man as unfallen. Rousseauian influence abounds - nature, long walks, beauty in raw creation as opposed to society. Cities are rarely mentioned, unless it is to weep over wicked, disgusting London. Nationalism is of place, not people - the poets long for their own climates, trees, and air. Children are praised and patronized. Herbert is gone - there is nothing metaphysical, and no one says "My God, My King." Courtly love is back: frustrated, jealous, illicit, etc.

Wordsworth's "Ruth" is a love story, but the man loves nature and freedom more than the titular character, and runs off to be all Romantic, not romantic. Ruth goes mad, but eventually flees the madhouse, and finds solace in nature herself. Boo marriage, society, yay nature and freedom!

"Infant Sorrow" seems a different angle on infants than might be typical of the Romantics. Infused with a heritage of believing in original sin.

Blake is combining his Christianity with a sort of pantheistic nature worship, and so his poems contain much that could go either way. "The Divine Image" can be read as orthodox, but possibly apart from Blake's intention.

Pascal's insights on the twofold character of man (Adam, Jesus Christ) are lost on Byron. Childe Harolde and the romantics generally reject the fallenness of man, and lose greatness as well. Byron thinks he "loves not man the less, but nature more", but has no idea how out of whack this view of man is. They have denied that man is less than nature, and cannot make him more than nature, either. Man is lost.

"I now mean to be serious; - it is time,
Since laughter now-a-days is deem'd too serious.
A jest at Vice by Virtue's call'd a crime,
And critically held as deleterious:
Besides, the sad's a source of the sublime,
Although when long a little apt to weary us;"
Lord Byron, From Don Juan, [Lady Adeline Amundeville:], 289

"Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away;
A single laugh demolish'd the right arm
Of his own country; - seldom since that day
Has Spain had heroes."
Lord Byron, From Don Juan, [Lady Adeline Amundeville:], 291

[Carolin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, at first I have to say I'm not a HUGE fan of poetry. Still I liked to look through the book and pick a poem here and there. Some I liked more, some less. I found the introduction very helpful and interesting, it made it easier for me to get a connection to the verses.

[Ely · Rating 5 out of 5]

Auden and Holmes Pearson's selection is magnificent and exemplary. In addition to the usual suspects (Byron, Keats, Shelley, the rest of the guys in the band, a la Sergeant Hathaway), there's a whole slew of poets who don't get much facetime in the reviews of Romantic poetry.

[Lanny · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bleh...I don't really like poetry and I really don't like this poetry.

[Ross Cohen]

Moments of tremendous beauty punctuate hours of tedious self-absorption. Yet, those moments make the read all worthwhile.

[Winnie Thornton · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a lot of goop in these poems.