ENG 461 Enlightenment and Romantic British Literature

This survey explores the work of six poets whose names are most closely associated with the Romantic era--Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, Keats, Byron, and Shelley--as well as works by other significant but less widely studied poets. The volume is alert to relevant contexts, and opens up ways of understanding Romantic poetry. In its central section 'Readings' it explores tensions, change, and continuity within the Romantic Movement, and examines a wide range of individual poems and poets through sensitive, attentive and accessible analyses. In addition, the authors provide a full introduction, a detailed historical and cultural timeline, biographies of the poets, and a helpful guide to further reading.

Analyzing Romanticism as a unique cultural phenomenon and a spiritual revolution, Dupré philosophically reflects on its attempts to recapture the past and transform the present in a movement that is partly a return to premodern culture and partly a violent protest against it. Following an introduction on the historical origins of the Romantic Movement, Dupré examines the principal Romantic poets of England (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats), Germany (Goethe, Schiller, Novalis, Hölderlin), and France (Lamartine, de Vigny, Hugo), all of whom, from different perspectives, pursued an absolute ideal.

This book offers an authoritative, up-to-date guide, introducing the novel's context, language, themes, criticism and afterlife, leading to a more sophisticated understanding of the text. Graham Allen places Frankenstein in its historical, intellectual and cultural contexts, offering analyses of its themes, style and structure, providing exemplary close readings, and presenting an up-to-date account of its critical reception. It also includes an introduction to its substantial history as an adapted text on stage and screen and its wider influence in film and popular culture. It includes points an annotated guide to relevant reading.

This groundbreaking dual biography brings to life a pioneering English feminist and the daughter she never knew. Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley have each been the subject of numerous biographies, yet no one has ever examined their lives in one book--until now. In Romantic Outlaws, Charlotte Gordon reunites the trailblazing author who wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and the Romantic visionary who gave the world Frankenstein--two courageous women who should have shared their lives, but instead shared a powerful literary and feminist legacy.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is one of the most widely read novels of all time. Its two central characters, the scientist Victor Frankenstein and the being he creates, have gained mythic status in their own right. Engaging with the novel's characterization is crucial to gaining a real understanding of its themes and contexts, including education, gender difference, imperialism, personal identity, revolutionary politics, and science. This study includes: an introductory overview of the novel, including a brief account of its historical and literary contexts; its reception history; discussion of the major themes and narrative structure; detailed analysis of, the representation of main characters, such as Walton, Frankenstein, and the creature; and a conclusion reminding students of the links between the characters and the key themes and issues.

Best known as the author of the ubiquitous Gothic novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, Mary Shelley lived an eventful, though grief-stricken life, between troubled finances, her father's disownment, and the death of multiple children. Topics discussed in this compilation include autobiographical elements and themes in her work, the influence of Frankenstein today, and her relationship with her husband, Romantic poet-philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley.