Letter Writing Among Poets: From William Wordsworth to Elizabeth Bishop

Jonathan Ellis

Published by Edinburgh University Press 2015

Letter Writing Among Poets

From William Wordsworth to Elizabeth Bishop

Jonathan Ellis

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748681334

Overview
Contents

About this book

The first book to look at poets’ letters seriously as an art form

Fifteen enlightening chapters by leading international biographers, critics and poets examine letter writing among poets in the last two hundred years. They range from Coleridge, Wordsworth, Keats and Shelley in the nineteenth-century to Eliot, Yeats, Bishop and Larkin in the twentieth. In doing so, they respond to the following questions. Who are the great letter writers of the past? Why is reading other people’s mail so addictive? What is the relationship between letter writing and other literary genres such as poetry? Divided into three sections—Contexts and Issues, Romantic and Victorian Letter Writing, and Twentieth-Century Letter Writing—the volume demonstrates that real letters still have an allure that virtual post struggles to replicate.

Key Features:

A comprehensive collection of essays on the art and genre of letter writing among Romantic, Victorian and Twentieth Century poets
Contributors are leading international biographers, critics and poets, including Hermione Lee, Paul Muldoon, Daniel Karlin, Hugh Haughton, Anne Fadiman, Edna Longley and Angela Leighton
An absorbing history of literary friendship, literary love, and literary rivalry
A sensitive study of the often close relationship between letter writing and poetry

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Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Contributors Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction: ‘For what is a letter?’ Jonathan Ellis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART I: CONTEXTS AND ISSUES
1 Dangerous Letters: A Biographer’s Perspective Hermione Lee Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
2 Editing Poems in Letters Daniel Karlin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	31
3 Editing Twentieth-Century Letters: The Road to Words in Air Thomas Travisano Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	47
4 Just Letters: Corresponding Poets Hugh Haughton Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	57
PART II: ROMANTIC AND VICTORIAN LETTER WRITING
5 Wordsworth’s Sweating Pages: The Love Letters of William and Mary Wordsworth Frances Wilson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
6 The Oakling and the Oak: The Tragedy of the Coleridges Anne Fadiman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	95
7 ‘Any thing human or earthly’: Shelley’s Letters and Poetry Madeleine Callaghan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	111
8 ‘Another sort of writing’? Invalidism and Poetic Labour in the Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Marcus Waithe Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	126
9 Passion and Playfulness in the Letters of Gerard Manley Hopkins Michael D. Hurley Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	141
PART III: TWENTIETH-CENTURY LETTER WRITING
10 The Gift of George Yeats Matthew Campbell Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	157
11 Epistolary Psychotherapy: The Letters of Edward Thomas and Philip Larkin Edna Longley Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	172
12 Lorine Niedecker’s Republic of Letters Siobhan Phillips Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	186
13 ‘Wherever you listen from’: W. S. Graham and the Art of the Letter Angela Leighton Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	202
14 Fire Balloons: The Letters of Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop Paul Muldoon Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	216
15 Last Letters: Keats, Bishop and Hughes Jonathan Ellis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	231
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	246

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 272
Illustrations
- Other: 1 B/W illustrations
Keywords: Literary Studies

eBook

Published: January 13, 2015
ISBN: 9780748681334