The Poem and the Book

The Romantic poets believed that the selection and arrangement of poems into collections were important steps in the poetic process. From the works of Dante, Petrarch, and Milton, Fraistat finds poetic precedent for the organising principles of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, and Shelley. From this background, he surveys over three hundred poetic volumes published between 1790 and 1830.