Formal charges
Subtitle: the shaping of poetry in British romanticism
By: Susan J. Wolfson.
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Stanford, Calif
Language: eng
Number of pages: 344
Subjects: English poetry -- 19th century -- History and criticism.; Romanticism -- Great Britain.; Poetics -- History -- 19th century.
Description: Why care about poetic form and its intricacies, other than in nostalgia for a bygone era of criticism? The purpose of this book is to refresh today this care for criticism, applying a historically aware formalist reading to poetic form in Romanticism and showing how in theory and practice Romantic writers addressed, debated, tested, and contested fundamental questions about what is at stake in the poetic forming of language.

In the process, it suggests the importance of these conflicted inquiries for contemporary critical discussion and demonstrates the pleasures of attending to the complex changes of form in poetic writing.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [299]-327) and index.