Romanticism, Lyricism, and History

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SUNY Press, Jan 1, 1999 - Literary Criticism - 233 pages
Arguing against a persistent view of Romantic lyricism as an inherently introspective mode, this book examines how Charlotte Smith, William Wordsworth, and John Clare recognized end employed the mode's immense capacity for engaging reading audiences in reflections both personal and social. Zimmerman focuses new attention on the Romantic lyric's audiences - not the silent, passive auditor of canonical paradigms, but historical readers and critics who can tell us more than we have asked about the mode's rhetorical possibilities. She situates poems within the specific circumstances of their production and consumption, including the aftermath in England of the French Revolution, rural poverty, the processes of parliamentary enclosure, the biographical contours of poet's careers, and the myriad exchanges among poets, patrons, publishers, critics, and readers in the literary marketplace.
 

Contents

The History of an Aura Romantic Lyricism and the Millennium that Didnt Come
1
Dost thou not know my voice? Charlotte Smith and the Lyrics Audience
39
William Wordsworth and the Uses of Lyricism
73
Dorothy Wordsworth and the Liabilities of Literary Production
113
John Clares Poetics and the Politics of Loss
147
Notes
185
Bibliography
213
Index
223
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About the author (1999)

Sarah M. Zimmerman is Associate Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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