Wordsworth Poetry Library – serie

With an Introduction by Paul Wright.'What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth' So wrote the Romantic poet John Keats (1795-1821) in 1817. This collection contains all of his poetry: the early work, which is often undervalued even today, the poems on which his reputation rests including the 'Odes' and the two versions of the uncompleted epic 'Hyperion', and work which only came to light after his death including his attempts at drama and comic verse.It all demonstrates the extent to which he tested his own dictum throughout his short creative life. That life spanned one of the most remarkable periods in English history in the aftermath of the French Revolution and this collection, with its detailed introductions and notes, aims to place the poems very much in their context. The collection is ample proof that Keats deservedly achieved his wish to 'be among the English Poets after my death'

Introduction and Notes by R.T. Jones, Honorary Fellow of the University of York.This edition of the poetry of Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) includes all the poems contained in the Definitive Edition of 1940. In his lifetime, Kipling was widely regarded as the unofficial Poet Laureate, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907. His poetry is striking for its many rhythms and popular forms of speech, and Kipling was equally at home with dramatic monologues and extended ballads.He is often thought of as glorifying war, militarism, and the British Empire, but an attentive reading of the poems does not confirm that view. This edition reprints George Orwell's hard-hitting account of Kipling's poems, first published in 1942, and generally regarded as one of the most important contributions to critical discussion of Kipling.

With an Introduction and Bibliography by Stephen Matterson, Trinity College, Dublin.Walt Whitman's verse gave the poetry of America a distinctive national voice. It reflects the unique vitality of the new nation, the vastness of the land and the emergence of a sometimes troubled consciousness, communicated in language and idiom regarded by many at the time as shocking.Whitman's poems are organic and free flowing, fit into no previously defined genre and skilfully combine autobiographical, sociological and religious themes with lyrical sensuality. His verse is a fitting celebration of a new breed of American and includes 'Song of Myself', 'Crossing Brooklyn Ferry', the celebratory 'Passage to India', and his fine elegy for the assassinated President Lincoln, 'When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd'.

With an Introduction and Notes by Sally MinogueDylan Thomas wrote some of the best-known and best-loved poems of the twentieth century, amongst them ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’, ‘Fern Hill’ and ‘The force that through the green fuse drives the flower’. This edition reproduces the Collected Poems 1934-1952 which the poet authorised just before his tragically early death at the age of 39 and which contains, as he said, ‘most of the poems I have written, and all, up to the present year, I wish to preserve’. His was a precocious talent: his first poem was published nationally at the age of 18, and his first collection, 18 Poems, was published when he was just 20. In spite of his early death, he therefore left behind a substantial and significant body of work, represented here. His poems cover the span of birth to death, while at their heart is a lyrical, joyful impulse that celebrates life.  The Introduction and Notes set Thomas’s poetry in their cultural (including their Welsh) context and poetic tradition, and offer ways in to a poetry which is highly crafted, and rich in language and emotion.

With a new Introduction by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex.W. B. Yeats was Romantic and Modernist, mystical dreamer and leader of the Irish Literary Revival, Nobel prizewinner, dramatist and, above all, poet. He began writing with the intention of putting his 'very self' into his poems. T. S. Eliot, one of many who proclaimed the Irishman's greatness, described him as 'one of those few whose history is the history of their own time, who are part of the consciousness of an age which cannot be understood without them'. For anyone interested in the literature of the late nineteenth century and the twentieth century, Yeats's work is essential.This volume gathers the full range of his published poetry, from the hauntingly beautiful early lyrics (by which he is still fondly remembered) to the magnificent later poems which put beyond question his status as major poet of modern times. Paradoxical, proud and passionate, Yeats speaks today as eloquently as ever.

With an Introduction by Antonia Till.William Wordsworth (1771-1850) is the foremost of the English Romantic poets. He was much influenced by the events of the French Revolution in his youth, and he deliberately broke away from the artificial diction of the Augustan and neo-classical tradition of the eighteenth century. He sought to write in the language of ordinary men and women, of ordinary thoughts, sights and sounds, and his early poetry represents this fresh approach to his art.Wordsworth spent most of his adult life in the Lake District with his sister Dorothy and his wife Mary, by whom he had four children. His remarkable autobiographical poem 'The Prelude' was completed in 1805, but was not published until after his death, and it is included in this full edition of Wordsworth's poetry.

Selected by Rosemary Gray.Poignant, wry, chilling, challenging, amusing, thought-provoking and always intriguing, these accomplished tales from the pens of great writers are object-lessons in the art of creating a literary masterpiece on a small canvas. From the straightforwardly anecdotal to the more analytical of human behaviour, all are guaranteed to capture the imagination, stir the emotions, linger in the memory and whet the reader's appetite for more. In this book, Wordsworth Editions presents the modern reader with a rich variety of short stories by a host of towering literary figures ranging from Arnold Bennett to Virginia Woolf. This disparate and distinguished company of writers has rarely - if ever - met within the pages of one volume: the result is a positive feast.

With an Introduction, Notes and Bibliography by Dr Bruce Woodcock, Senior Lecturer in English, University of Hull.Shelley's short, prolific life produced some of the most memorable and well-known lyrics of the Romantic period. But he was also the most radical writer in the English literary tradition of his day, a fiery political visionary committed to social change and progress.The generous selection in this volume represents the wide range of his writing, both poetry and prose. Arranged chronologically, the accompanying introductory essays set Shelley's works in their historical, social and political context. They provide a vivid insight into the life and times of this volcanic spirit whose inspiring voice called on the people of England to:‘Rise like lions after slumberIn unvanquishable number;Shake your chains to earth like dewWhich in sleep had fallen on you.Ye are many, they are few.’(The Mask of Anarchy)

With an Introduction, Bibliography and Glossary by Michael Irwin, Professor of English Literature University of Kent at Canterbury.Thomas Hardy started composing poetry in the heyday of Tennyson and Browning. He was still writing with unimpaired power sixty years later, when Eliot and Yeats were the leading names in the field. His extraordinary stamina and a consistent individuality of style and vision made him a survivor, immune to literary fashion. At the start of the twenty-first century his reputation stands higher than it ever did, even in his own lifetime.He is now recognised not only as a great poet, but as one who is widely loved. He speaks with directness, humanity and humour to scholarly or ordinary readers alike.

During his life, Geoffrey Chaucer (bornc.1340) was courtier, diplomat, revenue collector, administrator, negotiator,overseer of building projects, landowner and knight of the shire.  He was servant, retainer, husband, friend andfather, but is now mainly known as a poet and ‘the father of Englishliterature’, a postion to which he was raised by other writers in thegeneration after his death.  It wasBoccaccio’s Decameron which inspiredChaucer, in the 1390s, to begin work on TheCanterbury Tales, which was still unfinished at his death in October 1400.It tells the story of a group of 30 pilgrims who meet at the Tabard Inn inSouthwark, on the south bank of the Thames opposite the city of London, andtravel together to visit the then famous shrine of St Thomas Becket inCanterbury cathedral.  The tavern host,who accompanies them, suggests that they amuse one another along the way bytelling stories, with the best storyteller awarded a meal in the tavern (paidfor by all the others) on their return. The stories told by the pilgrims range from bawdy comedies throughsaints’ lives and moral tracts to courtly romances, always delivered with agenerous helping of Chaucer’s own sly wit and ironic humour. Although basinghis characters on the stereotypes of ‘estates satire’, Chaucer succeeds in hisaim of producing an overview of his times and their culture, for posterity, inthe manner of Italian, proto-Renaissance, writers.This transcription and edition is takenfrom British Library MS Harley 7334, produced within ten years of Chaucer’sdeath.  The on-page notes and glosses aimto enable readers with little or no previous experience of medieva

With an Introduction, Notes and Bibliography by Anne Varty, Royal Holloway, University of London.Wilde, glamorous and notorious, more famous as a playwright or prisoner than as a poet, invites readers of his verse to meet an unknown and intimate figure. The poetry of his formative years includes the haunting elegy to his young sister and the grieving lyric at the death of his father. The religious drama of his romance with Rome is captured here, as well as its resolution in his renewed love of ancient Greece.He explores forbidden sexual desires, pays homage to the great theatre stars and poets of his day, observes cityscapes with impressionist intensity. His final masterpiece, 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol', tells the painful story of his own prison experience and calls for universal compassion. This edition of Wilde's verse presents the full range of his achievement as a poet.

With an Introduction by Donald McFarlan.Robert Burns, the most celebrated of all Scottish poets, is remembered with great devotion - his birthday on 25th January provokes fervour and festivity among Scots and many others the world over. Born in 1759 into miserable rustic poverty, by the age of eighteen Burns had acquired a good knowledge of both classical and English literature.In June 1786 his first collection of verse, Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, which included 'To a Mouse' and 'The Cotter's Saturday Night', was greeted with huge acclaim by all classes of society. His later poems and ballads include 'Auld Lang Syne', the beautiful song 'My Love is like a Red Red Rose', 'Highland Mary', 'Scots Wha Hae' and his masterpiece, 'Tam o'Shanter'.

With an Introduction by Emma Hartnoll.Initially a vivacious, outgoing person, Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) progressively withdrew into a reclusive existence. An undiscovered genius during her lifetime, only seven out of her total of 1,775 poems were published prior to her death. She had an immense breadth of vision and a passionate intensity and awe for life, love, nature, time and eternity.Originally branded an eccentric, Emily Dickinson is now recognised as a major poet of great depth, startling originality and courage for as she wrote: ‘Assent and you are sane; /Demure you’re straightaway dangerous / And handled with a chain’.

With an Introduction and Notes by Dr Sally MinogueElizabeth Barrett Browning was such an acclaimed poet in her own lifetime that she was suggested as a candidate for the Poet Laureateship when Wordsworth died in 1850. Yet today we have only a limited knowledge of her considerable life’s work as a poet, in part because of a lack of representative but accessible editions of her work. Readers will find here not only her well-known sonnet sequence of love poems, Sonnets From the Portuguese, but also lesser known sonnets, some in praise of the cross-dressing bohemian writer George Sand, others to contemporary poets and artists. Her religious and spiritual poetry echoes that of the Metaphysical poets. A different voice emerges in her social and political protest poems, such as ‘The Cry of the Children’ and ‘The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point’. Her experimental ballads allowed her to develop a distinctive way of writing about women within an apparently conventional form. In the outstanding work of her maturity, Aurora Leigh, the woman’s voice takes centre stage. This ‘novel-poem’ is full of verve and interest, with a female poet-hero who casts a caustic eye on life and on her fellow men – and women. We all think we know the story of Elizabeth Barrett Browning – the mysterious illness which enclosed her in her room, her over-loving but imperious father, and her romantic, secret marriage to the poet Robert Browning and their life together in Italy. But this comprehensive selection of her poetry tells the real story of her sustained creative life as a poet, which began with her childhood poetic ambitions and ended only with her death. All the major aspects of her poetry are represented in this accessible edition which is well-annotated and contextualised, with a wide-ranging introduction which covers Barrett Browning’s poetic and intellectual life as well as her personal one. Recent critical re-readings, including major feminist reassessments, of her poetry are covered in the introduction, with helpful suggestions for further reading.

By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell…In 1914, the age of European Imperialism came to its inevitable end, and the Twentieth Century was born in fire and blood. Despite the memoirs, histories, films, and photographs, it is the poetry of the First World War above all else that has seared the horror of this conflict onto our collective memory. It was a war of poets, as professional writers and ordinary humanity took up the pen to try to record, interpret, mourn, or simply bear witness. Literature was changed forever, the new language of Modernism emerging, while a generation of gifted and sometimes great writers was lost. This collection thus includes the work of key figures like Owen, Sassoon, and Rosenberg alongside that of minor and sometimes amateur war poets, not just from the English-speaking world but from both sides of the conflict across Europe. Some of them survived. Most of them did not.This collection also combines the poetry of the front with the home front, particularly the voices of women, and of older, non-combatant literary giants like Kipling and Hardy. Poems are arranged by year to show the progression of the war, with each year prefaced by a short historical overview framed by a detailed Introduction. The collection concludes with brief biographies of every poet, adding to the heart-breaking story of the sacrifice, courage, carnage, and waste of war.

There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about', said Oscar Wilde more than a hundred years ago. But this remark seems perhaps even more relevant to our present world where so many seek publicity at any cost. Wilde's well-turned phrases and spontaneous insults still cause much amusement and admiration. Most of us miss the opportunities for bon mots, finding them long after the moments have passed, but Wilde seems never to have been short of suitable words - flattering, witty and on occasions savagely cruel.Many of the quotes in this book are taken from Wilde's plays, novels and essays which were also packed with witticisms amounting to an outrageous philosophy. Wilde's extravagance and unconventional behaviour earned him loyal friends but also bitter enemies and in 1895 after a series of unfortunate events and court cases he was gaoled for two years with hard labour for indecent behaviour.Though from prison came a few last brilliant works, Wilde was never to recover his health or standing in society. He died in Paris bankrupt, broken and alone. He is buried at Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise - one of Paris's finest cemeteries - where today many pilgrims from all parts of the world come to pay their respects and leave tokens in recognition of his genius.

With an Introduction by Tim Cook.Shakespeare's sonnets have an intensity of both feeling and meaning unmatched in English sonnet form. They divide into two parts; the first 126 sonnets are addressed to a fair youth for whom the poet has an obsessive love and the second chronicles his love for the notorious 'Dark Lady'.In addition to the sonnets, this volume includes Shakespeare's two lengthy narrative poems on classical themes, The Rape of Lucrece which looks forward to the dark imagery of Macbeth, and Venus and Adonis which mixes ribaldry and tragedy in unique Shakespearean manner. The Phoenix and the Turtle is a beautiful metaphysical and allegorical short elegy, and takes its place with Shakespeare's better-known poetry.

With an Introduction and Notes by David Ellis, University of Kent at Canterbury.Lawrence's reputation as a novelist has often meant that his achievements in poetry have failed to receive the recognition they deserve. This edition brings together, in a form he himself sanctioned, his Collected Poems of 1928, the unexpurgated version of Pansies, and Nettles, adding to these volumes the contents of the two notebooks in which he was still writing poetry when he died in 1930.It therefore allows the reader to trace the development of Lawrence as a poet and appreciate the remarkable originality and distinctiveness of his achievement. Not all the poems reprinted here are masterpieces but there is more than enough quality to confirm Lawrence's status as one of the greatest English writers of the twentieth century.

With an Introduction and Notes by Katherine McGowran.Christina Rossetti is widely regarded as the most considerable woman poet in England before the twentieth century. No reading of nineteenth century poetry can be complete without attention to this prolific and popular poet. Rosetti's inner life dominates her poetry, exploring loss and unattainable hope.Her divine poems have a freshness and toughness of thought, while many of her love poems are erotic, and as often express love for women as for men. The varied threads of Rossetti's concerns are drawn together in what is perhaps her greatest poem, the strange and ambiguous 'Goblin Market'.