Fiona Stafford is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford. She has published on a wide range of Romantic literature, and is especially interested in the literary relationships between England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. She has written several books including Local Attachments: The Province of Poetry (2010) and Brief Lives: Jane Austen (2008), and has edited Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads (2013), as well as novels by Jane Austen and Mary Shelley.

“There are gems of insight on every page of this engaging and clarifying book, which opens up familiar and unfamiliar poems to considerations of verbal texture just as much as it reveals them in their cultural and political contexts. Stafford’s Reading Romantic Poetryteaches as much by example as by precept. This is how to read Romantic poetry and it is, as such, an ideal introduction to the period’s literary culture as a whole.”  (The BARS Review, 1 October 2014)"These engagements with the nature of poetry are no mystical celebration of a mysterious power—on the contrary: by focusing on specific attempts Professor Stafford underlines the demystifying facet of these poems which lay bare their own artifice to their readers." (Cercles, 1 December 2012) "An excellent, well-written resource for those interested in Romantic poetry … Stafford brings a new sensibility and fresh eye to the subject ... Highly recommended." (Choice, 1 October 2012)

• Preface vii1 The Pleasures of Poetry 12 Solitude and Sociability 343 Common Concerns and Cultural Connections 654 Traditions and Transformations: Poets as Readers 955 Reading or Listening? Romantic Voices 1326 Sweet Sounds 1627 Poems on Pages 193References 227Index 230

Fiona Stafford is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford. She has published on a wide range of Romantic literature, and is especially interested in the literary relationships between England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. She has written several books including Local Attachments: The Province of Poetry (2010) and Brief Lives: Jane Austen (2008), and has edited Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads (2013), as well as novels by Jane Austen and Mary Shelley.

“There are gems of insight on every page of this engaging and clarifying book, which opens up familiar and unfamiliar poems to considerations of verbal texture just as much as it reveals them in their cultural and political contexts. Stafford’s Reading Romantic Poetryteaches as much by example as by precept. This is how to read Romantic poetry and it is, as such, an ideal introduction to the period’s literary culture as a whole.”  (The BARS Review, 1 October 2014)"These engagements with the nature of poetry are no mystical celebration of a mysterious power—on the contrary: by focusing on specific attempts Professor Stafford underlines the demystifying facet of these poems which lay bare their own artifice to their readers." (Cercles, 1 December 2012) "An excellent, well-written resource for those interested in Romantic poetry … Stafford brings a new sensibility and fresh eye to the subject ... Highly recommended." (Choice, 1 October 2012)

• Preface vii1 The Pleasures of Poetry 12 Solitude and Sociability 343 Common Concerns and Cultural Connections 654 Traditions and Transformations: Poets as Readers 955 Reading or Listening? Romantic Voices 1326 Sweet Sounds 1627 Poems on Pages 193References 227Index 230