British Children's Poetry in the Romantic Era Verse, Riddle, and Rhyme [Hardcover]

This important new book is the first monograph on children's poetry written between 1780 and 1830, when non-religious children's poetry publishing came into its own. Introducing some of the era's most significant children's poets, the book shows how the conventions of children's verse and poetics were established during the Romantic era.Introduction 1. Reading Romantic-Era Children's Verse 2. Myths of Origin: Original Poems for Infant Minds 3. The Mother Attitudes: Ann Taylor's "My Mother" and the Rise of the Sentimental 4. Teaching Nature and Nationalism: Adelaide O'Keeffe and the Poetry of Active Learning 5. Utilitarian Poetry: Versified Study Guides and Riddles, and the Handmade Verse Cards of Sara Coleridge 6. The Limits of the Romantic-Era Children's Poem: The Case of The Butterfly's Ball

The strength of this ambitious monograph lies in the quality of its extensive historical and archival research. In recovering a wealth of childrens secular verse forms, this impressive and rich study is an important and much welcomed addition to the fields of both Romanticism and Childrens Literature Studies. (Katherine Ingle, Charles Lab Bulletin, Vol. 161, Spring, 2016)

British Childrens Poetry in the Romantic Era is a valuable study of a poetic tradition that has long been rendered invisible by the reigning Romantic aesthetic. & The book is written in a clear yet exploratory prose style, never straying far from its sources as it allows them to guide its lines of inquiry. & British Childrens Poetry is productively utilitarian, offering teachers and scholars a rich taxonomic vocabulary. (Angela Sorby, Childrens Literature Association Quarterly, Vol. 40 (4), Winter, 2016)

Ruwes thorough and thought-provoking formalist study tracks metrical patterns and evaluates the frequency of dramatic, narrative and lyric modes by authors such as Adelaide OKeeffe and Sara Coleridge. Detailed, perceptive, and crisply wlsÃ