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Selected PoemsCharlotte SmithEdited by Judith Willson![]()
Categories: 18th Century, 19th Century, Women
Imprint: FyfieldBooks Publisher: Carcanet Press Available as: Paperback (144 pages) 9781857547252 Out of Stock
Ah! hills so early loved! in fancy still
I breathe your pure keen air; and still behold Those widely spreading views, mocking alike The poet and the painter's utmost art. And still, observing objects more minute, Wondering remark the strange and foreign forms Of sea-shells... from Beachy Head
Charlotte Smith (1749-1806) was a prolific writer whose independence of outlook marks her out as a strikingly modern figure. Her poetry was admired by Wordsworth, and although her work was later neglected, she is now being recognised as a major poet whose Romantic sensibility was an expression of specifically female experience. This selection reveals Charlotte Smith as a moving, memorable poet, her responses to natural and emotional landscapes marked by vividly particular observation.
This selection provides an ideal introduction to the full range of Charlotte Smith's work. Her influential sonnets and her poems for children, extracts from her French Revolution poem 'The Emigrants' and the full text of her astonishing 'Beachy Head' are included here. Judith Willson's introduction and notes give the background to Smith's life and clarify the detail of her poems.
Table of Contents
Introduction - Judith Willson Note on the Texts Further Reading from Elegiac Sonnets and Other Poems I II IV VII XII XXII XXVI XXVII XXXI XXXVI XL XLIV XLIX LI LVIII LXVI LXVII LXXI LXXV LXXVII LXXVIII LXXIX LXXXI LXXXVI LXXXVII XCI Thirty Eight Verses Supposed to Have Been Written in the New Forest, in Early Spring The Forest Boy from The Emigrants from Conversations Introducing Poetry; Chiefly on Subjects of Natural History, For the Use of Children and Young Persons A Walk by the Water The Hedgehog Seen in a Frequented Path the Moth To the Firefly of Jamaica, Seen in a Collection To a Geranium which Flowered during the Winter. Written in Autumn from Beachy Head and Other Poems Flora Beachy Head Notes
Praise for Judith Willson
'These poems glitter and intrigue, with a high strike-rate, a sophisticated polish on words.'
Dilys Wood, Artemis Poetry 'It is a poetry of settlement, of attending to the artistic voices including your own, and contemplating their artefacts as is only possible in a civilised condition. How it might view such things as governmental cruelty or the history of brutality, is suggested through the careful development of figurative language.' Peter Riley, Fortnightly Review 'She gets everything right: beautiful, fulsome vocabulary, arresting images, and perfect control of tone and metre. She is thoughtful and exact. These poems have clearly seen many reworkings. I'm reading this book greedily...I know I'll come back to it again.' Charlotte Wetton, The Kindling Journal 'Judith Willson's taut, meditative, richly imagined debut collection ... is an on-going interplay between a speaking us and a silent them, between multiple artworks and their multiple subjects: not just one single crossing of the mirror line, but several.' Stephen Grace, Eborakon Judith's poem 'A Bone Flute' from her debut collection Crossing the Mirror Line was Guardian Poem of the Week on 8th January 2018 'Judith Willson's poetry takes us, in a dazzling flow of images, to lives which have the solidity of Central European fairytale with all the frightening reality of history behind them. Richly inventive in form and precise in tone, this is an amazingly assured debut collection.' Elaine Feinstein |
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