William Wordsworth, often regarded as the High Priest of British Romantic Poetry, certainly had the longest career of the Romantics, one extending from his days as a schoolboy almost to the end of his life in 1850, from the Lyrical Ballads and descriptive poetry of 1790s to the late poetry of the 1840s. With this long career came a remarkable history of critical reception: from the reviews of his contemporaries in journals and magazines; to the major statements of Matthew Arnold, John Stuart Mill, and others; to the amazing variety of books, essays, and theoretical approaches of the twentieth...

It appears that the lives of the British Romantics and the myths surrounding them have a special appeal for contemporary writers.The present volume sets out to explore this renewed interest in Romantic artist-figures in the context of the current renaissance of 'life-writing'. The essays collected here deal with Romantic 'biofictions' by such authors as Peter Ackroyd, Adrian Mitchell, Ann Jellicoe, Liz Lochhead, Judith Chernaik, Amanda Prantera, Robert Nye, Tom Stoppard, Howard Brenton, Edward Bond, and others. Thomas Chatterton, William Blake, James Hogg, Sir Walter Scott, Percy Bysshe...

Since the 1820s, Ralph Waldo Emerson has provoked an unsettled response from his readers and contentiousness among critics. Critics still contest Emerson's position: Was he poet or philosopher? Did he liberate American literature or narrow it to a one-dimensional idea? Is his signature concept of self-reliance the most profound contribution to democratic individualism or the epitome of capitalism's impoverished thought? But by the mid 20th century the swing between condemnation and celebration of Emerson had given way to the familiar story of his bisected career, which provided a neat...

Since its appearance in 1922, James Joyce's novel Ulysses has remained extremely popular, never having gone out of print. Since the expiration of its copyright in the early 1990s, almost every major press in the US and England has produced an edition of the novel. This widespread public interest, in turn, has led well-known literary critics--from T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound to Terry Eagleton and Homi Bhabha--to attempt to explain the intricacies of the great novel. Debate continues over even the most fundamental aspects of its plot, characterization, and themes. Every year, more and more...