The Cambridge Introduction to William Wordsworth

Cambridge Introductions to Literature

by Emma Mason

William Wordsworth is the most influential of the Romantic poets, and remains widely popular, even though his work is more complex and more engaged with the political, social and religious upheavals of his time than his reputation as a ‘nature poet' might suggest. Outlining a series of contexts – biographical, historical and literary – as well as critical approaches to Wordsworth, this Introduction offers students ways to understand and enjoy Wordsworth's poetry and his role in the development of Romanticism in Britain. Emma Mason offers a completely up-to-date summary of criticism on Wordsworth from the Romantics to the present and an annotated guide to further reading. With definitions of technical terms and close readings of individual poems, Wordsworth's experiments with form are fully explained. This concise book is the ideal starting point for studying Lyrical Ballads, The Prelude, and the major poems as well as Wordsworth's lesser known writings.

Genres: English Literature

150 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2010

About the author

Emma Mason is Professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick. Her research focuses on poetry and poetics 1750-present, religion and literature, philosophy and literature, ecology, and affect theory. She is the co-author of Nineteenth-Century Religion and Literature: An Introduction (with Mark Knight; OUP, 2006) and Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century (Northcote House Publishers Ltd, 2004). Mason edits the Bloomsbury monograph series New Directions in Religion and Literature; and co-edits the Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory (with Neil Badmington; OUP).

Reviews

[Eleni]

The contextual information was more interesting than the discussion of the poetry itself.

[David Anthony Sam]

A brief but nicely done introduction and overview.