Shelley's first love Book

If you’re a poetry fan you need to read this book, a historical collection of poetry in one place. I have read this alongside other selected readings of Renaissance poetry, Victorian poetry, and Modernist poetry, (Katherine Mansfield ‘The Garden Party and other Stories’, 1922). The difference of poems like ‘Drifters’, ‘If I had a gun’. I have learnt more about literature, criticism, and culture, and the vast history of poetic structure, prose, sonnets, and social culture that reflects the writings of the times they were written, and as they do today. E.g. in the past through the industrial revolution ('The Great Expedition' 1851), and the hypocrisy of Victorian times, its social structure, (Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 1850), and Queen Victoria's own perceptions, morals and values-when reading, and writing was the form of communication that sparked many debates (e.g. religion debates by Charles Lyell, 'Principles of Geology' in 1833 and Charles Darwin’s 'Origin of Species' in 1859, sparking atheism) and many other writings. Adjustments were made long before postmodernism arrived, and I can see how lessons were learnt, weary from the demise of the Greeks and Romans where many theories and philosophies originated from great thinkers like Aristotle and the imbalance: ‘I grieve and dare not show my discontent’, by Queen Elizabeth I, 1823), and of capitalism, post-feudalism; a time of loss and gain for others. I have learnt to nurture and am learning to write with more theory and thought in mind and aware of how other poets have formed theme, style, meaning, and content trying not to 'rhyme without reason'; strategies for the interpretation of poetry. Although I'm a fan of the Renaissance and Romanticism I have found great insight, intelligence, and vision here with all these works. It's never too late to learn, and this collection is an excellent addition and reference to any scholar’s library, so much here. Edited by John Leonard and from the Oxford University Press.

Len Carter 12th Nov 2009