Description
The story begins, in a formal sense, with Lyrical Ballads, first published anonymously in 1798. That small volume, largely by Wordsworth with key contributions from Coleridge, quietly altered the course of English verse. The poems by Wordsworth and Coleridge in this volume all bear the mark of that program: intense feeling disciplined by thought, and everyday or inward experience raised to visionary clarity.
The next generation appeared in a very different atmosphere. Byron became a European celebrity almost overnight. His shorter lyrics circulated widely in songbooks and gift editions, fusing personal emotion with a public, almost theatrical poise. Shelley, often controversial in his politics and religion, published his poems in relatively small editions, admired in radical and literary circles more than by the broad public. Keats, by contrast, never knew great popularity in his own lifetime. The 1820 volume that contained his odes was coolly received, and hostile reviews contributed to the legend of a young poet cut off too soon. Only later in the nineteenth century did his reputation rise to its current height.
This collection includes celebrated poems by:
William Wordsworth; I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, Surprised by Joy
Samuel Taylor Coleridge; Kubla Khan, Frost at Midnight
Lord Byron; She Walks in Beauty, When We Two Parted, So, We’ll Go No More a-Roving
Percy Bysshe Shelley; Ozymandias, Love’s Philosophy, Music, When Soft Voices Die, Ode to the West Wind
John Keats; Bright Star, Ode to a Nightingale. To Autumn, Ode on a Grecian Urn
