UNIV. OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ENGLISH ROMANTIC POETRY (Up till the publication of the " Lyrical Ballads", 1798) BY ERIC PARTRIDGE, M. A.; B. LITT. (Oxon) LIBRAIRIE ANCIENNE ÉDOUARD CHAMPION LIBRAIRE DE LA SOCIÉTÉ DE L'HISTOIRE DE FRANCE ET DE LA SOCIÉTÉ DES ANCIENS TEXTES FRANÇAIS 5, QUAI MALAQUAIS, 5 FOREWORD English Romantic poetry in the Eighteenth Century has been discussed from many standpoints and in various ways: some minor men have been treated in detail; major writers have been closely examined; tendencies have been traced; several broad studies on the subject have appeared, but they have either stopped short of chronological completeness or passed over — for reasons wholly satisfactory to the writers one or two important figures. that Seeing these intentional omissions (and some omissions that were not intentional) and voluntary delimitations on this side thoroughness, I thought it might be useful to students of English literature, and to such others as are interested in the farstretching Romantic movement, to have on this subject a sketch and this book pretends to be little more than a sketch will (I hope) be adequate from the historical point of view and profitable from the illustrative. With both these ends in view, I have included numerous minor poets, who, though neglected by the moderns, undoubtedly excited some attention among their contemporaries and in a small but not unimportant way influenced them and perhaps their immediate successors; moreover, it is well known that the Countess of Winchelsea influenced Wordsworth, that Logan provided an interesting commentary on Gray's Norse poems, and so on. For all the poets that I treat, I propose, not to criticise the mass of their poetry (unless they happen to be wholly Romantic), but only to establish and illustrate their significance as Romantics little space will given to Goldsmith for example, while the Wartons will receive more attention than they have generally been paid. |