Our thoughts are shaped as much by what things make of us as by what we make of them. Lyric poetry is especially concerned with things and their relationship to thought, sense, and understanding. In Romantic Things, Mary Jacobus explores the world of objects and phenomena in nature as expressed in Romantic poetry alongside the theme of sentience and sensory deprivation in literature and art. Jacobus discusses objects and attributes that test our...

Offers a brief introduction to the life of English poet William Wordsworth and critical analysis of his work.

"William Wordsworth's iconic relationship with his 'beloved Sister' spanned nearly fifty years. Separated after the death of their mother when Dorothy was six, and reunited as orphans after the death of their father, they became inseparable companions. This is the first literary biography to give each sibling the same level of detailed attention; with Dorothy's writings set fully alongside her brother's, we see her to be the poet's equal in a literary...

This book presents not just the Romantic Wordsworth, but Wordsworth as part of a large historical movement in poetry, beginning in the eighteenth century and continuing to the present day. It concentrates on the difficult, much discussed, but little analyzed problem of "sincerity" in poetry, which it treats both critically and historically, as a demand relatively new in Wordsworth's time and still with us. It contains an extended criticism of Wordsworth's...

Critical essays examine the general poetic qualities, individual poems, and analyzes significant passages.