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Formal charges

by Susan J. Wolfson · 1997

Cover of Formal charges
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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.

PoeticsHistory and criticismEnglish poetryRomanticismHistoryEnglish poetry, history and criticism, 19th centuryRomanticism, great britain