This book explores the significance of flight to Romantic literature. Although the Romantic movement and the age of ballooning coincided, there has been a curious and long-time tendency to forget that flight was not impossible during this period. This study details the importance of this new technology to Romantic authors, primarily English Romantic poets. It combines accounts of the exploits and experiences of early balloonists with references to Romantic texts, using ballooning lore to i...

The book offers a detailed commentary on the poetry of Philip Larkin, exploring the political and cultural contexts which have shaped his contemporary reputation. Part 1, Life and Times, traces Larkin's early years and follows his development, within his career as a university librarian, into one of the most important and popular voices in twentieth-century poetry. Part 2, Artistic Strategies, explores a range of methodologies and aesthetic influences by which Larkin was able to create poe...

First published in 1983, this books aims to guide Wordsworth students through his difficult masterpiece by reading it in continuous sequence and making its sense emerge. The special value of this commentary is that it explains the structure of The Prelude by encouraging study of the poem as a continuous whole rather than selectively looking at individual sections — an approach that has typified modern criticism of the work. This depends upon a close attention to the careful arrang...