Portraits of Poets: 4 Classic Books on Influential Poets

Classic Essays on Poetic Lives, Dantean Vision, Romantic Genius, and Literary ReputationBy Gabriele Rossetti, Edward Dowden, John Fielder Porte, Arthur Symons

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Portraits of Poets: 4 Classic Books on Influential Poets gathers four substantial exercises in literary criticism, biography, and appreciation into a capacious study of poetic influence. Moving between interpretive portraiture, historical reconstruction, and close evaluative prose, the volume considers poets not as isolated geniuses but as figures formed by artistic inheritance, national tradition, and changing ideals of beauty. Its range—from the medieval and Renaissance worlds to modern literary sensibilities—makes the collection a revealing document of how criticism itself fashions poetic reputation. The contributors bring distinct critical temperaments to a shared task. Gabriele Rossetti's historically alert engagements with Italian poetry stand beside Edward Dowden's influential Victorian scholarship, John Fielder Porte's attentive literary exposition, and Arthur Symons's characteristically aesthetic and Symbolist-inflected criticism. Together, these voices connect Romantic, Victorian, and fin-de-siècle modes of reading, illuminating the period's sustained interest in Dantean tradition, Shakespearean achievement, lyric subjectivity, and the autonomy of art. Their differing methods enrich the anthology by showing that a poet's legacy is continually reinterpreted. This volume is recommended to students of comparative literature, poetry, and the history of criticism, as well as to general readers seeking thoughtful introductions to canonical figures. It offers the unusual pleasure of encountering several critical traditions in one book, inviting productive dialogue among its portraits and expanding one's sense of what poetry can mean across cultures and eras.

Audiobook details

GenreLiterary Classics

Length25 hrs

Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices

FormateBook with Audio

Publish dateMar 4, 2025

LanguageEnglish

1Gems, Pearls, and Pebbles: 4 Classic Books on Precious Stones

2William Blake

3PREFACE

4IV

5VII

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6IX

7(I.) EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY, LETTERS, AND REMINISCENCES OF HENRY CRABB ROBINSON, TRANSCRIBED FROM THE ORIGINAL MSS. IN DR. WILLIAMS'S LIBRARY, 1810-1852

8(1) FROM CRABB ROBINSON'S DIARY (pt. 1)

9(1) FROM CRABB ROBINSON'S DIARY (pt. 2)

10Edward MacDowell: A Great American Tone Poet, His Life and Music

11Edward MacDowell: A Great American Tone Poet, His Life and Music

12PREFACE

13BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

14BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

15MACDOWELL AS COMPOSER

16MACDOWELL THE MAN

17THE MACDOWELL COLONY

18THE MUSIC

19WORKS WITHOUT OPUS NUMBERS