Romantic writers, perhaps more than any others, revised their works incessantly, in manuscript and in successive published editions. Wordsworth's Prelude, for example (which remained in manuscript for fifty-two years) is well known in two editions, but the various drafts and stages of manuscript composition give us many more versions of a poem whose text is rendered increasingly unstable in the process of revision. This collection of essays, the first of its kind, responds to the recent radical overhaul in the editing of Romantic texts. Leading American and British editors of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Percy and Mary Shelley, Leigh Hunt, Keats and Clare explain and illustrate the implications of their editorial methods for the ongoing process of revision (in texts and their reception) which they have both reflected and helped to produce. The volume offers insights into the urgent debate over editorial practices and their theoretical bases, while uncovering the complex revisionary processes of creativity at the heart of Romantic writing.
Table of contents:
Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Revision as making: the Prelude and its peers Jonathan Wordsworth; 2. Wordsworth's poems: the question of text Stephen Gill; 3. 'A Power to Virtue Friendly': the Pedlar's Guilt in Wordsworth's Ruined Cottage Jonathan Barron and Kenneth R. Johnston; 4. Revising the revolution: history and imagination in The Prelude, 1799, 1805, 1850 Nicholas Roe; 5. Crossings out: the problem of textual passage in The Prelude Keith Hanley; 6. Reflections on having edited Coleridge's poems J. C. C. Mays; 7. Creative process and concealment in Coleridge's poetry Norman Fruman; 8. Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere journals: the patterns and pressures of composition Pamela Woof; 9. Byron and The Truth in Masquerade Jerome McGann; 10. Don Juan and the revisionary self Peter Manning; 11. Shelley's manuscripts and the web of circumstance Donald H. Reiman; 12. Spaces between words: writing Mont Blanc Robert Brinkley; 13. Correcting the irritability of his temper: the evolution of Leigh Hunt's Autobiography Timothy Webb; 14. Finding Mary Shelley in her letters Betty T. Bennett; 15. Keats's extempore effusions and the question of intentionality Jack Stillinger; 16. Keats's two Hyperions and the problem of Milton Jonathan Bate; 17. Revising Clare John Lucas; List of contributors; Index.
Leading American and British textual editors respond to the recent radical overhaul in the editing of Romantic texts in the light of developments in critical theory.
Leading American and British textual editors respond to the recent radical overhaul in the editing of Romantic texts in the light of developments in critical theory.
Table of contents:
Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Revision as making: the Prelude and its peers Jonathan Wordsworth; 2. Wordsworth's poems: the question of text Stephen Gill; 3. 'A Power to Virtue Friendly': the Pedlar's Guilt in Wordsworth's Ruined Cottage Jonathan Barron and Kenneth R. Johnston; 4. Revising the revolution: history and imagination in The Prelude, 1799, 1805, 1850 Nicholas Roe; 5. Crossings out: the problem of textual passage in The Prelude Keith Hanley; 6. Reflections on having edited Coleridge's poems J. C. C. Mays; 7. Creative process and concealment in Coleridge's poetry Norman Fruman; 8. Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere journals: the patterns and pressures of composition Pamela Woof; 9. Byron and The Truth in Masquerade Jerome McGann; 10. Don Juan and the revisionary self Peter Manning; 11. Shelley's manuscripts and the web of circumstance Donald H. Reiman; 12. Spaces between words: writing Mont Blanc Robert Brinkley; 13. Correcting the irritability of his temper: the evolution of Leigh Hunt's Autobiography Timothy Webb; 14. Finding Mary Shelley in her letters Betty T. Bennett; 15. Keats's extempore effusions and the question of intentionality Jack Stillinger; 16. Keats's two Hyperions and the problem of Milton Jonathan Bate; 17. Revising Clare John Lucas; List of contributors; Index.
Leading American and British textual editors respond to the recent radical overhaul in the editing of Romantic texts in the light of developments in critical theory.
Leading American and British textual editors respond to the recent radical overhaul in the editing of Romantic texts in the light of developments in critical theory.