The Penguin Book of Romantic Poetry (Penguin Classics)

I'm not sure why this is called the Penguin book of Romantic poetry. There is nothing about penguins or their mating rituals.

While I may disagree with some of the categorization a of the poems (e.g. Blake's "The Mental Traveler" as a poem about love, this is none-the-less an expansive collection of Romantic poetry, annotated to help the modern reader.

Great selection of poetry, however the typeface is very small, if you are over 21 you may have trouble reading it.

The Penguin Book of Romantic Poetry contains over 800 pages of poetry, and copious amounts of notes. The large and choice selection has been carefully categorised into sub-headings like "Romantic Hallmarks", "Ennobling Interchange: Man and Nature", "Romantic Odes", "Romantic Lyric and Song" and (my favourite) "Poets in Relationship", wherein is collected poetry written for lovers, children, siblings, friends, and sometimes from one poet to another.The notes provided at the end of the books do not interfere with the interpretation of the poem, and only serve as a way to gloss meaning of archiac words or obscure references made to things that would have been common knowledege then. Thus it leaves the reader free to attach any frame of intepretation or meaning to the poem itself, without ever finding himself forced or compelled to take the view of the editors.Another useful feature the collection has is the inclusion of short write-ups about the poets' lives. They give a brief, but incisive introduction to the poets, and more importantly, places them within the timeframe of the long Romantic Period.That said, this anthology is really for the casual reader, one who may have a personal interest in Romantic poetry (and an interest that will prove rewarding, I might add) or simply wish to explore new poets before reading more of their work. As such, you will not find certain poems that other anthologies might choose for the sake of its significance in the corpus of the poets' work. For instance, Blake's "Auguries of Innocence" (To see a World in a Grain of Sand / And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, / Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand / And Eternity in an hour) is strangely missing from this collection.But otherwise this is a great collection and a portable copy that one can take around and read while on the bus or the train, or even during the lunch break. The poets are never presented in a way that is meant to intimidate the new reader with the history and grandness of the poet, but are instead presented in what I can only call a "friendly" manner.If one is more interested in an anthology that goes a little further than this, in terms of analysis or textual help, "Romanticism: An Anthology" by Duncan Wu would be an excellent choice. The 3rd edition is now currently available.

Good book as is usual with Nortion editions, however the book is not the usual large size thatNorton books usually are; it is small in size, which is a bit frustrating to use.

It is very interesting to look through Amazon site reviews of poetry anthologies. The evaluations of such books are often made by people who are pulling their hair and rending their garments over poems that should have been in the books reviewed.First of all, there are few volumes of poetry from the Romantic period in print (A comment to those who are unfamiliar with the term "Romantic" in reference to an historical period. This is not a book of "love poems"; it is a book of poems written during the period of roughly 1795 to 1830.) The only way that one who is interested in poems from this era can build a collection of them is to buy more than one book. I know of no single book that can meet an expectation of completeness. Therefore it is silly to get into this type of debate.What this book does provide is 1000 pages representing the major, and many minor poets of the period.For those who are not serious scholars it also has three important extra features:1. It provides an informative introduction to the poetry.2. It provides about 150 pages of notes on the poems. To me this is a most useful aid to reading, and I am disappointed when an anthology of poetry from a long gone era does not provide it. The notes provide interpretations and explanations of obsolete English terms, classical and obscure literary references, and, in the case of this book, some interesting comments on various lines in the poem.3. It provides brief biographies of the poets.What is unusual in the book is that it presents the poems according to various themes such as "Man and Nature", The Romantic Sonnet", and "Protest and Politics". You, as I, may prefer the simple technique of having the contents laid out by poets in alphabetical order, but fortunately there is an index of each poet with all of that author's poems listed under his/her name. This method of organizing the book isn't any less screwy than the one found in "The New Oxfod Book of Romantic Period Verse", in which each section is by year, starting with the poems written in 1785. Thus one poet's works my be spread throughout a huge chunk of the book.There is a lot of poetry in this book, but if you really, really want to encompass the period you have to buy more books.To the best of my knowledge those in print at reasonable cost are:1.The New Oxford Book of Romantic Period Verse. It is annotated.2.English Romantic Poetry An Anthology. This is a Dover Publication. A smaller book of only 240 pages, and typically, for Dover books, it is not annotated. The good news is that it is dirt cheap.3. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. There are about 250 pages of Romantic Poetry in this massive 2000 page book. The advantage of this volume is that you are getting an annotated book of poems ranging from the beginning of English poetry to the present. The disadvantage is that it is not an inexpensive book.

Though the book is great for the terrific selection of poetry, the part of the book that discusses the poets and the era is not really my style. I'd like it to be more detailed, less subjective?

Plenty of material all of a high standard. Good investment entertaining wise.

Book with a good collection of texts , but not for reference and explanations , but excellent for the texts .

Great service, was easy to order and arrived very quickly

There is not much to say about this piece of literary classics-it's simply fantastic. All important pieces combined- very useful.One star is missing since I did expect a few foot notes. Other thanthat it's a fantastic collection of romantic literature.

This book arranges an authoritative collection of romantic poetry arranged by topic and accompanied by a detailed introduction to the romantic period.Captivating.