English Romantic Poetry: Blake and Wordsworth

This Great Books class is sold out. Please email human@unc.edu with your First & Last name, and phone number to be added to the waitlist.

featuring Hilary Edwards Lithgow, Teaching Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature

Some of the most powerful and pleasing poems in the English language, written in one of the greatest periods in English poetry

On Wordsworth:

William Wordsworth is the foremost of the English Romantic poets. He was much influenced by the events of the French Revolution in his youth, and he deliberately broke away from the artificial diction of the Augustan and neo-classical tradition of the eighteenth century. He sought to write in the language of ordinary men and women, of ordinary thoughts, sights and sounds, and his early poetry represents this fresh approach to his art. —Wordsworth Editions

Of all the lasting innovations that Wordsworth brought to our literature, it is his discovery of nature and his fresh vision of human lives in the context of nature that have most influenced our cultural climate. By turning away from mythological subjects and artificial diction toward the life and language around him, Wordsworth acquired for poetry the strength and new sources of inspiration that have allowed it to survive and flourish in the modern world. —Everyman’s Library

On Blake:

William Blake is one of England’s most fascinating writers; he was not only a groundbreaking poet, but also a painter, engraver, radical, and mystic. Although Blake was dismissed as an eccentric by his contemporaries, his powerful and richly symbolic poetry has been a fertile source of inspiration to the many writers and artists who have followed in his footsteps. —Vintage Press

Writer and religious rebel, William Blake sowed the seeds of Romanticism in his innovative poems concerning faith and the vision that inspired him throughout his remarkable life. Whether describing his own spirituality, the innocence of youth, or the corruption caused by mankind, his writings depict a world in which spirits dominate and the mind is the gateway to Heaven. —Penguin Random House

Meeting Dates: Tuesdays, June 1 and 8

Cost: $35, includes a coursepack shipped to your home

Register online or call 919.962.1544