Poetry of the romantic age is often uninviting to students, leaving them puzzled because they do not sense the connections between the poetry and themselves. Yet, much romantic poetry can be enjoyed and comprehended if approached in terms of some personal, reflective, and connective readings. Wordsworth and Whitman are often avoided because they…

A successful, elective minicourse in the literature of terror and the supernatural examined various literary works in the light of six goals: to examine the terror motif in fiction (in print and other media), to try to understand the reasons for the continued appeal of the literature of terror, to investigate why representative authors have…

This unit of study for junior-high level high-ability language arts students explores five themes in 19th century American history through literature of the times: romanticism, transcendentalism, abolitionism, industrialism, and feminism. Each of the five "isms" has its own "literature box" that contains appropriate documents…

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) has much to teach about arts education. However, the first question that many today might ask is, Should we listen to him at all? Wordsworth, some members of the postmodern academy have determined, was a bad man. He was unkind to his family and friends, they say, and they are uncomfortable with the politics he…

Argues that among the branches of historicism practiced by literary critics today, a branch of New Historicism that is broadly humanistic as opposed to narrowly political is the most illuminating. Describes the development and theoretical premises of this branch. Shows how it may be applied to the analysis of a literary work such as Keats's…

Argues that Wordsworth's emphasis on love of nature, faith in man, and political sympathy--three expressions of concern strongly echoed in contemporary life--make him a worth literary figure for young people to study. (RB)

One of the Afro-American writers who spoke out clearly during the postreconstruction period was Albery A. Whitman (1851-1902). A romantic poet, Whitman produced seven volumes of poetry. His profound belief in freedom and equality for his race is expressed forcefully in two long narrative poems, "Not a Man and Yet a Man" and "The…

Examines Victor Hugo's "Ninety-three," Charles Dickens'"Tale of Two Cities," and Eugene Zamiatin's "We" as examples of romantic satire, considering in each work the quest motif, the oedipal themes, the dystopian vision, and the role of love. (AYC)

One of a series of works aimed at presenting contemporary critical opinion on major authors, this collection includes essays by Paul Valery, Henri Peyre, Fracois Mauriac, Charles du Bos, Etienne Gilson, P.M. Pasinetti, John Middleton Murry, Marcel Proust, Georges Poulet, Erich Auerbach, and Jean Prevost--all dealing with the biography and literary…

The book "Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada" by Clarence King, a late-ninteenth-century American geologist, writer, art critic, and romantic, is discussed in this paper. In the writing and revision of this book, King was attempting a metamorphosis of landscape description into popular reading as he moved from being a symbolic writer to…

One of a series of works aimed at presenting contemporary critical opinion on major authors, this collection includes essays by G. Wilson Knight, Bernard Blackstone, Mario Praz, Paul West, Guy Steffan, F. R. Leavis, W. W. Robson, Helen Gardner, George M. Ridenour, Edmund Wilson, Gilbert Highet, Bertrand Russell, and John Wain--all dealing with the…