Books

Eighteenth-Century Poetry: An Annotated Anthology (Blackwell Anthologies)

Average customer rating:

Reshaping the Eighteenth-Century Canon
Interesting but occasionally frustrating anthology

Eighteenth-Century Poetry: An Annotated Anthology (Blackwell Anthologies)

Manufacturer: Blackwell Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Anthologies | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0631206248

Customer Reviews:

Reshaping the Eighteenth-Century Canon.......2003-06-10

In Eighteenth-Century Poetry: An Annotated Anthology, David Fairer and Christine Gerrard have created an important portable library. The contents have been organized in a variety of useful ways (chronologically as well as thematically) and insightfully selected to cover a range of voices and topics. The annotations stand up to repeated readings; the scholarship displays a rare mixture of subtlety and depth of knowledge. Although it is an invaluable teaching tool for undergraduates, I keep it on my desk as an accessible and meticulously accurate reference resource. There is no finer work of its kind.

Interesting but occasionally frustrating anthology.......2000-02-26

Good anthologies of eighteenth-century poetry are hard to come by, so when I taught a course on the subject I naturally leaped at this book. But while its coverage is admirable, reflecting new interest in both women poets (Leapor, Barbauld, Seward) and underread male poets (Chatterton, Dyer, Parnell), the book nevertheless was difficult to teach. Annotation and historical backgroud proved inadequate even for advanced English majors, particularly given the classics-heavy subject matter. Too, some editorial policies proved frustrating, particularly the decision to delete or sharply abridge the original footnotes from Gay's *The Shepherd's Week* and Pope's *The Dunciad*--omissions that fatally obscure both poems' satiric intentions. Nevertheless, the emphasis on full-length poems over excerpts is welcome (one area in which the book notably improves on its primary competition, Lonsdale's two Oxford anthologies). It's hardly a bad book--quite the contrary--but it could stand some thoughtful revision.

Eighteenth-Century Poetry: An Annotated Anthology (Blackwell Annotated Anthologies)

Average customer rating:

Eighteenth-Century Poetry: An Annotated Anthology (Blackwell Annotated Anthologies)
Christine Gerrard
Manufacturer: Blackwell Publishing Limited
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Reference | Books & Reading | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Criticism | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Qualifying Textbooks - Spring 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

The Cambridge Companion to Eighteenth-Century Poetry (Cambridge Companions to Literature)
Restoration Literature: An Anthology (Oxford World's Classics)
Pamela: Or Virtue Rewarded (Oxford World's Classics)
Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress (Oxford World's Classics)
Samuel Johnson: The Major Works (Oxford World's Classics)

ASIN: 1405113197

Book Description

Eighteenth-Century Poetry: An Annotated Anthology reveals the rich variety of poetry produced in the period 1700-1800. The work of traditionally prominent authors, such as Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Robert Burns and William Cowper, is presented alongside pieces by lesser-known writers, particularly women, including Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Mary Jones, Ann Yearsley, Sarah Egerton and Mary Collier. All the poems have full foot-of-page annotations and generous headnotes.

For the second edition, the political and satirical content of the anthology has been strengthened, with the inclusion of poems such as Charles Churchill's Night, Samuel Johnson's London and Swift's A Satirical Elegy on a Late Famous General. The revised edition also features work by two new women poets, Martha Fowke and Sarah Dixon. The editors continue to draw out interesting links between the poems, and especially between male and female poets.

Books:

Books