The literature of the Romantic era is steeped in the politics of revolution and reaction. This volume looks at first and second generation poets such as Wordsworth, Blake, Byron and Shelley and explores their engagement with the turbulent history of their times. Other genres such as drama, fiction and travel writing are also discussed, with close attention paid to texts by Walpole, Austen and Mary Wollstonecraft. Combining thematic analysis with modern critical perspectives, the volume also includes key contextual sections focusing on Imagination, Truth and Reason, Heroes and Anti-heroes...

First published in 1983, this books aims to guide Wordsworth students through his difficult masterpiece by reading it in continuous sequence and making its sense emerge. The special value of this commentary is that it explains the structure of "The Prelude "by encouraging study of the poem as a continuous whole rather than selectively looking at individual sections an approach that has typified modern criticism of the work. This depends upon a close attention to the careful arrangement of the verse paragraphs, all of which make an indispensable contribution to the overall thought pattern,...