"This poetry anthology is impressive because of its carefully lucidheadnotes and footnotes, its thematic contents lists and itstextual reliability, all of which are a very high order." (BARSBulletin & Review, July 2008)
"The editors have a particular commitment to the role that anappreciation of poetic form can play in critical understanding, andit is on account of this formal detail that the anthology is sovaluable. Introductory headnotes elucidate the subtleties of eachpoem's craft, while footnotes comment on line endings, rhymepatterns, and other features of the text. Some comments are sobrilliantly incisive as to deserve separate publication, such asthe account of the metre of Christabel: 'each line seemslike a stealthy event'
(p. 207). Without question, this is by farthe best way that any reader could be introduced to these poets,and the anthology is careful not to suggest that an attention topoetic detail precludes other types of investigation. Understandinghow a poem creates meaning, however, is the vital first step, andfor this reason Romantic Poetry: An Annotated Anthology willdoubtless be the standard teaching anthology for many years."Year's Work of English Studies (2010)"Romantic Poetry is the ideal anthology for students andspecialists alike, defining a new canon of ten Romantic poets andreflecting the full diversity of Romantic poetic forms. All readerswill welcome the freshly-edited texts, the authoritative headnotesand annotations, and the thought-provoking introduction. Edited bytwo leading scholars of Romanticism, the new Blackwell anthology ofRomantic poetry will be the first choice for the classroom,library, and private study."
-Nicholas Roe, University of St Andrews
"This is a welcome and usefully up-to-date new anthology,providing, in a concise and manageable selection, a genuinelyrepresentative overview of the canon of romantic poetry, as it iscomprised today by the works of poets of both sexes.O'Neill's excellent introduction pulls off thedifficult feat of offering, to the first-time reader or student, acoherent and accessible summary of its subject without beingreductive or overly simplifying. The introduction is nicelycomplemented by the thematically divided list of texts,particularly user-friendly from the undergraduate point of view.Prefaces, which address both individual poems as well as each poetmore generally, are critical rather than merely informative; theannotations too, are more detailed and explanatory than the moreminimal glosses usually provided in comparable publications."
-Uttara Natarajan, Goldsmiths College, University ofLondon
