Revision and Romantic Authorship [Paperback]

The Romantic author is often portrayed as spontaneous, extemporizing, otherworldly, and alone. Zachary Leader argues that this influential fiction is much in need of revision. Romantic attitudes to authorship profess a preference for what comes naturally, with a concomitant devaluing of secondary processes, including second thoughts, yet many Romantic writers such as Wordsworth, Byron, Keats, Coleridge, Clare, and Mary Shelley revised their works.Revision and Romantic Authorshiplooks at the revisionary practices of these writers, showing that second thoughts (including those of collaborators) in fact play a crucial role in Romantic composition.

Introduction
Part One: Revision and Personal Identity
1. Wordsworth, Revision, and Personal Identity
2. Byron, Revision, and the Stable Self
3. Coleridge's Revisionary Complexity
Part Two: Revision and Authorial Autonomy
4. ParentingFrankenstein
5. John Taylor and the Poems of Clare
6. Keats, the Critics, and the Public
Appendix
Bibliography
Index

Revision and Romantic Authorshipis an intelligent, articulate, and well-documented analysis of recent textual scholarship and current theories of editing as these fields impinge upon critical understanding of the English Romantics. --The Wordsworth Circle

Valuable as a corrective to Romanticism's many mystifications of the creative process and provides a rich, informative account of how some famous works assumed their present canonical forms....Highly recommended. --Choice