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Lookup NU author(s): Dr David O'Hanlon-Alexandra
This is the authors' accepted manuscript of an article that has been published in its final definitive form by Routledge, 2022.
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In The Poetical Works of Robert Southey, Collected by Himself (1837–38), Southey engaged in a large-scale project of authorial re-presentation through his use of a genre peculiar to the Romantics: a prose preface to the author’s own poetry. In the wake of posthumous articles on Walter Scott by Harriet Martineau and on Samuel Taylor Coleridge by Thomas De Quincey, Southey’s prefaces to Poetical Works combine previously published prefaces with new biographical essays in a calculated strategy to shape his poetic legacy by pre-empting his posthumous biographers. He integrates his much-criticized political “apostasy” into a narrative of personal and poetic maturation that includes his development of the epic genre. That narrative is mapped on to his critical reception, which becomes increasingly hostile in tandem with his growing conservatism. In so doing, he constructs a literary identity that fulfills his self-defined criteria of a poetic genius who transcends contemporary taste. Making comparisons to more famous prefatory writings by Coleridge and William Wordsworth, this study highlights Southey’s idiosyncratic approach to the shared concerns of his Lake District circle—poetic genius, posthumous legacy, and political “apostasy”—as well as his contribution to the preface genre.
Author(s): O'Hanlon-Alexandra D
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: European Romantic Review
Year: 2022
Volume: 33
Issue: 3
Pages: 367-388
Print publication date: 31/05/2022
Online publication date: 31/05/2022
Acceptance date: 16/12/2019
Date deposited: 01/06/2022
ISSN (print): 1050-9585
ISSN (electronic): 1740-4657
Publisher: Routledge
URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/10509585.2022.2068531
DOI: 10.1080/10509585.2022.2068531
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