This book explores the "self-conscious poem" - that is, a poem concerned with poetry that displays awareness of itself as poetry - in the work of the major Romantic poets, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats. Michael O'Neill's readings freshly illuminate the imaginative distinction of many famous and often-studied poems, and revalue less regarded works. An extended coda looks at some post-Romantic poets, particularly Yeats, Stevens, Auden, and Clampitt, in the light of the book's central theme.

Michael O'Neill lives on a farm in Sounthern Ontario with his wife and best friend Kerri. A father, farmer, plumber and, now, has turned to his passion as an avid writer. Watch for future works!

• Acknowledgements


• Note on Texts and Abbreviations


• Introduction


• PART I. The First Generation


• 1.: And I staind the water clear: Blake


• 2.: The words he uttered . . .: Wordsworth


• 3.: That done in air: Coleridge


• PART 2. The Second Generation


• 4.: A being more intense: Byron


• 5.: The mind which feeds this verse: Shelley (1)


• 6.: The sensitive plant: Evaluation and the Self-Conscious Poem: Shelley (2)


• 7.: The reading of an ever-changing tale: Keats (1)


• 8.: Writing and History in Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion: Keats (2)


• CODA. The Post-Romantic Self-Conscious Poem


• 9.: Yeats and Stevens: Two Versions of Post-Romantic Self-Consciousness


• 10.: Making and Faking: W. H. Auden


• 11.: The knowledge of contrast, feeling for light and shade: Amy Clampitt's Voyages: A Homage to John Keats


• Biobliography


• Index