Revision and Romantic Authorship / Edition 1

by Zachary Leader

Overview

The Romantic author is often portrayed as spontaneous, extemporizing, otherworldly, and alone. Zachary Leader argues that this influential fiction is much in need of revision. Romantic attitudes to authorship profess a preference for what comes naturally, with a concomitant devaluing of secondary processes, including second thoughts, yet many Romantic writers such as Wordsworth, Byron, Keats, Coleridge, Clare, and Mary Shelley revised their works. Revision and Romantic Authorship looks at the revisionary practices of these writers, showing that second thoughts (including those of collaborators) in fact play a crucial role in "Romantic" composition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198186342
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	07/29/1999
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	366
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Roehampton Institute, London

Table of Contents

IntroductionPart One: Revision and Personal Identity1. Wordsworth, Revision, and Personal Identity2. Byron, Revision, and the Stable Self3. Coleridge's Revisionary ComplexityPart Two: Revision and Authorial Autonomy4. Parenting Frankenstein5. John Taylor and the Poems of Clare6. Keats, the Critics, and the PublicAppendixBibliographyIndex

Editorial Reviews

"Revision and Romantic Authorship is an intelligent, articulate, and well-documented analysis of recent textual scholarship and current theories of editing as these fields impinge upon critical understanding of the English Romantics."—The Wordsworth Circle

"Valuable as a corrective to Romanticism's many mystifications of the creative process and provides a rich, informative account of how some famous works assumed their present canonical forms....Highly recommended."—Choice

From the Publisher