Books by Marjorie Levinson

The fragment poem, long regarded as a peculiarly Romantic phenomenon, has never been examined outside the context of thematic and biographical criticism. By submitting the unfinished poems of the English Romantics to both a genetic investigation and a reception study, Marjorie Levinson defines the fragment's formal character at various moments in its historical career.

This highly original study presents re-readings of four major poems from Wordsworth's great period of creativity, 1798-1805: 'Tintern Abbey', 'Michael', the Intimations Ode, 'Peele Castle'. The author's concern is to reveal within the profound philosophic and psychic themes of these poems a range of formative contradictions - social, economic and political.