Romanticism

Duncan Wu is Raymond A. Wagner Professor of English Literature at Georgetown University, Washington DC. He was also Professor of English Literature at Glasgow University and Professor of English Language and Literature at St Catherine’s College, Oxford. He is the author of numerous books on the Romantics and poetry.

Introduction xvi

Editor’s Note on the Fifth Edition xxiii

Editorial Principles xxiv

Acknowledgements xxv

A Romantic Timeline 1770–1851 xxviii

About the Companion Website Iiii

William Blake (1757–1827) 1

All Religions Are One (composed c.1788) 5

There Is No Natural Religion (composed c.1788) 6

The Book of Thel (1789) 7

Songs of Innocence (1789) 11

Songs of Experience (1794) 22

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790) 36

Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793) 47

The First Book of Urizen (1794) 53

Letter from William Blake to the Revd Dr Trusler, 23 August 1799 (extract) 68

From ‘The Pickering Manuscript’ (composed 1800–4) 69

From ‘Milton’ (composed 1803–8) 72

William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads (1798) 73

Advertisement (by Wordsworth, working from Coleridge’s notes, composed June 1798) 75

The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere, in Seven Parts (by Coleridge, composed November 1797–March 1798) 76

The Foster-Mother’s Tale: A Dramatic Fragment (by Coleridge, extracted from Osorio, composed April–September 1797) 94

Lines Left upon a Seat in a Yew-Tree which Stands near the Lake of Esthwaite, on a Desolate Part of the Shore, yet Commanding a Beautiful Prospect (by Wordsworth, composed April–May 1797) 96

The Nightingale; A Conversational Poem, Written in April 1798 (by Coleridge, composed April–May 1798) 97

The Female Vagrant (by Wordsworth, derived from ‘Salisbury Plain’, initially composed late summer 1793 and revised for inclusion in Lyrical Ballads, 1798) 100

Goody Blake and Harry Gill: A True Story (by Wordsworth, composed 7–13 March 1798) 107

Lines Written at a Small Distance from My House, and Sent by My Little Boy to the Person to Whom They are Addressed (by Wordsworth, composed 1–9 March 1798) 110

Simon Lee, the Old Huntsman, with an Incident in which He Was Concerned (by Wordsworth, composed between March and 16 May 1798) 111

Anecdote for Fathers, Showing How the Art of Lying May Be Taught (by Wordsworth, composed between April and 16 May 1798) 114

We Are Seven (by Wordsworth, composed between April and 16 May 1798) 116

Lines Written in Early Spring (by Wordsworth, composed c.12 April 1798) 118

The Thorn (by Wordsworth, composed between 19 March and 20 April 1798) 119

The Last of the Flock (by Wordsworth, composed between March and 16 May 1798) 125

The Dungeon (by Coleridge, extracted from Osorio, composed April–September 1797) 128

The Mad Mother (by Wordsworth, composed between March and 16 May 1798) 129

The Idiot Boy (by Wordsworth, composed between March and 16 May 1798) 131

Lines Written near Richmond, upon the Thames, at Evening (by Wordsworth, derived from a sonnet written 1789, complete in this form by 29 March 1797) 142

Expostulation and Reply (by Wordsworth, composed probably 23 May 1798) 143

The Tables Turned: An Evening Scene, on the Same Subject (by Wordsworth, composed probably 23 May 1798) 144

Old Man Travelling; Animal Tranquillity and Decay, A Sketch (by Wordsworth, composed by June 1797) 145

The Complaint of a Forsaken Indian Woman (by Wordsworth, composed between early March and 16 May 1798) 146

The Convict (by Wordsworth, composed between 21 March and October 1796) 148

Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, 13 July 1798 (by Wordsworth, composed 10–13 July 1798) 149

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) 153

A Night-Piece 157

The Discharged Soldier 158

The Ruined Cottage 162

The Pedlar 174

The Two-Part Prelude 183

There Was a Boy 206

Nutting 207

Strange Fits of Passion I Have Known 208

Song 209

A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal 210

Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower 210

The Brothers: A Pastoral Poem 211

Preface to Lyrical Ballads 223

Note to ‘The Thorn’ 232

Note to Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ 234

Michael: A Pastoral Poem 234

I Travelled among Unknown Men 246

Preface to Lyrical Ballads 246

To H.C., Six Years Old 248

The Rainbow 249

These Chairs They Have No Words to Utter 249

Resolution and Independence 250

I Grieved for Buonaparte 254

The World Is too Much with Us 254

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, 3 September 1802 255

To Toussaint L’Ouverture 255

It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free 256

1 September 1802 256

London 1802 257

Great Men Have Been among Us 257

Ode 258

Daffodils 262

Stepping Westward 263

The Solitary Reaper 264

Elegiac Stanzas, Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm, Painted by Sir George Beaumont 265

Star Gazers 267

St Paul’s 268

Surprised by Joy – Impatient as the Wind 268

Conclusion to The River Duddon 269

Airey-Force Valley 269

Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg 270

From The Fenwick Notes (dictated 1843) 271

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) 273

To the River Otter 277

Letter from S.T. Coleridge to George Dyer, 10 March 1795 (extract) 278

The Eolian Harp. Composed at Clevedon, Somersetshire (1834) 279

Reflections on Having Left a Place of Retirement 281

Religious Musings (extract) 283

Letter from S.T. Coleridge to John Thelwall, 19 November 1796 (extract) 285

This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison (1834) 285

Letter from S.T. Coleridge to John Thelwall, 14 October 1797 (extract) 288

Letter from S.T. Coleridge to Thomas Poole, 16 October 1797 (extract) 288

Of the Fragment of ‘Kubla Khan’ (1816) 289

Kubla Khan (1816) 290

Frost at Midnight (1834) 291

Christabel 293

Letter from S.T. Coleridge to Thomas Poole, 6 April 1799 (extract) 310

The Day-Dream 310

The Picture; or, The Lover’s Resolution 311

A Letter to Sara Hutchinson, 4 April 1802. Sunday Evening 315

A Day-Dream 324

Dejection: An Ode 325

The Pains of Sleep (1816) 328

Letter from S.T. Coleridge to Thomas Poole, 14 October 1803 (extract) 330

Letter from S.T. Coleridge to Richard Sharp, 15 January 1804 (extract) 330

To William Wordsworth. Lines Composed, for the Greater Part, on the Night on which He Finished the Recitation of His Poem in Thirteen Books, concerning the Growth and History of His Own Mind, January 1807, Coleorton, near Ashby-de-la-Zouch 331

Letter from S.T. Coleridge to William Wordsworth, 30 May 1815 (extract) 334

From Biographia Literaria (1817) 336

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. In Seven Parts (1817) 337

From Table Talk 354

The Ancient Mariner 354

The True Way for a Poet 354

The Recluse 355

Keats 355

George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (1788–1824) 356

She Walks in Beauty 363

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage: Canto III 363

Prometheus 397

Stanzas to Augusta 398

Epistle to Augusta 400

Darkness 404

Letter from Lord Byron to Thomas Moore, 28 February 1817 (extract; including ‘So We’ll Go No More a-Roving’) 406

Don Juan 407

Letter from Lord Byron to Douglas Kinnaird, 26 October 1819 (extract) 509

Messalonghi, 22 January 1824. On This Day I Complete My Thirty- Sixth Year 509

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) 511

To Wordsworth 517

Alastor; or, The Spirit of Solitude 517

Journal- Letter from Percy Bysshe Shelley to Thomas Love Peacock, 22 July to 2 August 1816 (extract) 535

Hymn to Intellectual Beauty 537

Mont Blanc. Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni 539

Ozymandias 543

On Love 543

Lines Written among the Euganean Hills, October 1818 545

Stanzas Written in Dejection, near Naples 554

The Mask of Anarchy. Written on the Occasion of the Massacre at Manchester 555

Ode to the West Wind 565

England in 1819 568

Lift Not the Painted Veil 568

On Life 569

To a Skylark 571

A Defence of Poetry; or, Remarks Suggested by an Essay Entitled ‘The Four Ages of Poetry’ (extracts) 574

Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, Author of Endymion, Hyperion, etc. 587

Music, When Soft Voices Die 604

When Passion’s Trance Is Overpast 604

To Edward Williams 605

With a Guitar, to Jane 606

John Keats (1795–1821) 609

On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer 616

Addressed to Haydon 617

On the Grasshopper and the Cricket 617

From ‘Endymion: A Poetic Romance’, Book I 618

Letter from John Keats to Benjamin Bailey, 22 November 1817 (extract) 622

Letter from John Keats to George and Tom Keats, 21 December 1817 (extract) 623

On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again 624

When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be 625

Letter from John Keats to John Hamilton Reynolds, 3 February 1818 (extract) 625

Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil: A Story from Boccaccio 626

Letter from John Keats to John Hamilton Reynolds, 3 May 1818 (extract) 642

Letter from John Keats to Richard Woodhouse, 27 October 1818 643

Hyperion: A Fragment 644

The Eve of St Agnes 665

Journal-Letter from John Keats to George and Georgiana Keats, 14 February–3 May 1819 (extracts) 676

La Belle Dame Sans Merci: A Ballad 677

Ode to Psyche 679

Ode to a Nightingale 681

Ode on a Grecian Urn 683

Ode on Melancholy 685

Ode on Indolence 686

Lamia 688

To Autumn 704

The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream 705

Bright Star, Would I Were Steadfast as Thou Art 718

This Living Hand, Now Warm and Capable 718

Index of First Lines 719

Index to Headnotes and Notes 722