The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. D: The Romantic Period

Norton Anthology of English Literature

by M.H. Abrams (Founding Editor), Stephen Greenblatt (General Editor), Deidre Shauna Lynch

Firmly grounded by the hallmark strengths of all Norton Anthologies thorough and helpful introductory matter, judicious annotation, complete texts wherever possible The Norton Anthology of English Literature has been revitalized in this Eighth Edition through the collaboration between six new editors and six seasoned ones. Under the direction of Stephen Greenblatt, General Editor, the editors have reconsidered all aspects of the anthology to make it an even better teaching tool.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Anthologies, Fiction, Literature, Reference, Textbooks

1104 pages, Paperback

First published December 22, 2005

About the author

Meyer Howard Abrams is an American literary critic, known for works on Romanticism, in particular his book The Mirror and the Lamp. In a powerful contrast, Abrams shows that until the Romantics, literature was usually understood as a mirror, reflecting the real world, in some kind of mimesis; but for the Romantics, writing was more like a lamp: the light of the writer's inner soul spilled out to illuminate the world. Under Abrams' editorship, the Norton Anthology of English Literature became the standard text for undergraduate survey courses across the U.S. and a major trendsetter in literary canon formation.

Abrams was born in a Jewish family in Long Branch, New Jersey. The son of a house painter and the first in his family to go to college, he entered Harvard University as an undergraduate in 1930. He went into English because, he says, "there weren't jobs in any other profession, so I thought I might as well enjoy starving, instead of starving while doing something I didn't enjoy." After earning his baccalaureate in 1934, Abrams won a Henry fellowship to the University of Cambridge, where his tutor was I.A. Richards. He returned to Harvard for graduate school in 1935 and received his Masters' degree in 1937 and his PhD in 1940. During World War II, he served at the Psycho-Acoustics Laboratory at Harvard. He describes his work as solving the problem of voice communications in a noisy military environment by establishing military codes that are highly audible and inventing selection tests for personnel who had a superior ability to recognize sound in a noisy background. In 1945 Abrams became a professor at Cornell University. As of March 4th, 2008, he was Class of 1916 Professor of English Emeritus there.

Reviews

[Paras2 · Rating 5 out of 5]

technically not finished but well I'm done with it for now.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

My project to read The Norton from The Romantic Period to the Present wrapped up today. This work began when I TA-ed for my friend Matt's British Lit class in the Fall and it ended up taking all school year (OU graduates on Saturday).

Although I didn't enjoy the Romantic Anthology as much as the Modern and the Victorian, this is (obviously?) so full of greatness.

I went in thinking I liked the big four poets in this order: Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley. Now, I'd probably say: Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Coleridge. But I just see them much more completely now, and not as their caricatures. Shelley isn't just a whiny teenager. Keats isn't just a great epigrammer (sometimes he's kinda ponderous and sometimes Shelley's kinda super-brilliant).

Also enjoyed: Burns, some of Blake, Wollstonecraft, some of Lamb, Charlotte Smith.

[Elizabeth]

I didn't read all of it since we just read sections in school. But dude. The romantics are so wordy.

Never forget my professor asking me if I "see poetry as something to get through" only to assign ninety pages of reading during the week our essay was due.

Overall, the romantic era makes me want to go on a long walk. Ozymandias was my favorite poem from this section. Could've used more women <-- idk if that's a book problem, professor problem, or most likely just the time these poems were all written.

[Joshua]

I read every page of this one

[David]

Continuing with the 11th edition, the ISBN of which is not linked here yet, I find one of the things that strikes me as a weakness is perhaps not really a weakness at all on the grounds that very few people are going to do what I'm doing and read through the whole thing all at once. I began to feel midway through Volume D, The Romantic Era, that if I saw 'AEolian' defined one more time, I was going to lose patience, but then remembered that, of course, each time it's defined as though the reader has turned to this title and this title alone. I suppose it's a reminder that one usually doesn't read an anthology--particularly not one of this size--as "one book."

[Jenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read a lot of poetry in this for my Romantic Period Writing module at uni, and enjoyed!

[Mollie! · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dog-eared, highlighted, and trashed, I'm never giving this book up EVER! Wish it had been bigger--would have loved more of the later Romantics and more about the lives of the six greatest poets of this era. Otherwise really fantastic. Perfect if you're a Lit major with an area of focus in this subject.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uni book.
Technically I am still using it this semester, but I've finished all of my required reading in it so I'm putting it on my 'read' shelf. It is an incredible anthology (no surprise there) and it holds a wide variety of writers from the Romantic Period. Norton focus on some of the lesser known writers, not just the big six, which gives a wider knowledge of the era.

[Livy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Covers most of the major authors from the Romantic period, prose and poetry. I think the excerpts were excellent choices and the short author bios before each section were very informative. My favorite was "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Coleridge. This book is a great reference for anyone taking a British Lit course, but also fun to look through on your own.

[Emily]

Read:
From Introduction: -
Sonnets from Elegiac Sonnets - Charlotte Smith
The Ecchoing Green - William Blake
London - William Blake

[Autumn Lytle · Rating 3 out of 5]

For all intents and purposes, I have finished this textbook. It has good poems and short stories from influential authors of the time period.

[Books]

This has been the single most important and beneficial textbook throughout my college career. It was assigned for my English Literature II class back in the spring of 2019, but I keep coming back to it time and time again; in fact, it is currently open on my desk right now. The Romantic era of English literature resonates with my interests, so much that I have penned numerous essays over the subject--some of which I have even had the honor of getting published. The well-worn pages of this volume have guided my academic pursuits and inspired me to become a professor of literature and particularly Romanticism so that I can, in turn, inspire students to see the fantastic connections that exist between the literary and natural worlds. In short, this book changed my life.

[Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm glad I went through the whole thing; though I wasn't often inspired by the contextual matter, it was definitely useful to contextualize my fields selections among other widely-read works by the same authors, and among other authors. I discovered a lot of works I like much better than the ones I actually read -- including Beachy Head, which I shouldn't have avoided so firmly! I'd like to read the Longman now..

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

This anthology collection has many of the classic British writers such as William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. I like how this collection also gives information on the time periods and author biographies.

[Debby Tiner · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was another of my books for college. I didn’t read the whole book, since it’s an anthology and my professor was using select works from the book.

One note-able commentary on Keats “Ode to a Nightingale”: it’s pretty gay, talking about death like that.

[Jaguar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Book 1/3 done for my British Lit class (Read: Sep. 5-14 2017).

[Lady of the Ashes · Rating 4 out of 5]

purchased this book for my literature course. I am generally not a poetry fan but really did enjoy reading some of the poems here.

[Duncan Rice · Rating 5 out of 5]

School work. Love it.

[Lena · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't read the whole thing, just some poems and short stories for class, but they were very interesting. Love and Friendship, a novella by Jane Austen was my favorite, it was so funny!

[Edie Walls · Rating 4 out of 5]

I adored the class that went with the book, so I learned to appreciate all of the poetry we read from it!

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

I swear to God anthologies are not meant to be read cover to cover.

[BOOKWYN · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes, I read this for a class. Yes, I’m counting it toward my reading goal this year.

[Stella Bauer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read for class; it was a great class

[Ev · Rating 4 out of 5]

honestly loved the poetry and short stories in this!

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading straight through...hit Wordsworth...some famous lines...

[Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is well thought out, as you would expect from a Norton Anthology. I just really do not like the romantics outside of the occasional Keats or Austen (if you categorize her as Romantic, which I don't).

[Jenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one for my textbooks for my English 242 (British Literature II) class.

[Christopher Garlington · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to memorize every word.

[Hope Shutt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read: Introduction, "Kubla Khan", Preface to Lyrical Ballads, Ballads Introduction, "The Wife of Usher's Well", "Sir Patrick Spens", "The Negro's Complaint", "La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad", Sonnet Introduction, "To Sleep", "On Being Cautioned", "Westminster Bridge", "The world is too much with us", "Surprised by Joy", "Steamboats, Viaducts, and Railways", "Ozymandias", "England in 1819", "Chapman's Homer", "Bright Star", "Ode" (Wordsworth), "Dejections: An Ode", "Ode on Melancholy", "Ode on a Grecian Urn", The 1805 Prelude: Intro and Book First, Don Juan: Intro and Canto I, A Defense of Poetry, "The Thorn", "The Little Black Boy", "The Interesting Narrative", "Sorrows of Yamba", "One the Slave Trade", "Slave Trade", "The Chimney Sweeper", "We Are Seven", "Resolution and Independence", "A Vindication of the Rights of Women", "The Ruined Cottage", "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", "The Lamb", "On Another's Sorrow", "The Sick Rose", "The Garden of Love"

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read: Smith, “Written in the Church-Yard at Middleton,” “On Being Cautioned against
Walking on an Headland,” “The Sea View”; Burns, “A Red, Red Rose,” “For a’ that,” “Green Grow the Rashes." Blake, “Introduction,” “The Lamb,” “The Little Black Boy,” “The Chimney Sweeper,” “Holy Thursday” from Songs of Innocence. Blake, “Introduction,” “The Tyger,” “The Chimney Sweeper,” “London,” “The Garden of Love” from Songs of Experience. Equiano's "Interesting Narrative" and Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman." Wordsworth, “We Are Seven,” “Lines Written in Early Spring,” “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey.” Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, “Kubla Khan” “Frost at Midnight”; Wordsworth, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” “The World Is Too Much with Us.” Keats, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer,” “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” “Ode to a Nightingale” Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes."