William Wordsworth: A Poetic Life

Product description Review Literary biography is flourishing these days, and now it's Wordsworth's turn in this examination of the "episodes in a poetic life," or moments when the poems and life intersect. Mahoney (Boston Coll.; The English Romantics, 1978) gives a cautious nod here to deconstruction, which he sees as exposing the different and often opposed meanings of a text, as well as the New Historicism, which deepens the reader's sense of the poet's engagement with the world. But while Mahoney's approach is enriched by both of these contemporary strategies, his larger goal is to write neither a critical study nor a life per se but something more like a biography of the poet's career, when Wordsworth was, in the fullest sense, his most writerly self.-- "Library Journal" From the Back Cover A Poetic Life is a new biography of the great father of British Romanticism. It is new in several ways, most notably in the way it approaches the life of the poet. It attempts to tell the story of the life through a more rigorous reading of key and representative works by the poet and through a careful blending of his life and poetry. About the Author John L. Mahoney is Thomas F. Rattigan Professor of English at Boston College and specializes in British Enlightenment and Romantic Literature. He has previously published books on Hazlitt, Keats, and Coleridge.John L. Mahoney is Thomas F. Rattigan Professor of English at Boston College and specializes in British Enlightenment and Romantic Literature. He has previously published books on Hazlitt, Keats, and Coleridge. Read more