Jan/Feb 2013 - The Romantic Six

[Rose Dominick]

The first issue of 2013 is our January/February Issue! This issue will be themed around a group of authors known as "The Romantic Six" (Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, and Byron).

We would like to know what articles you, our readers, would be interested in reading on this topic.

Have an idea for us? Just leave a comment below!

[Kevin Derby]

I have a few ideas for this one.

1. Byron as the odd man out. Byron may have lived at the same time as the others but his poetry is very different (and he seems to have loathed the others with the exception of Shelley). Blake, Wordsworth and Keats look back on Milton as the model poet. Byron doesn’t. His poetry is like Pope’s or Dryden’s--long, often with iambic pentameter, more polished. Byron is very witty and sometimes does not take himself that seriously--something that can’t be said about Shelley or Keats.

2. Movie reviews. Bunches of them. “Bright Star,” “Gothic” from Ken Russell, “Haunted Summer” with Eric Stoltz as Shelley, “Bedlam” about Wordsworth and Coleridge. We can go on here...

3. Burnout. The second generation--Shelley, Byron, Keats--all died young. Coleridge and Wordsworth burned out pretty quickly themselves. The two of them lived a long time but were pretty much done as poets before they hit middle age.

4. Fictionalized forms. There are loads of alternative books with them. In one steampunk novel, Byron is one of the leaders of England, Shelley is an asylum and Keats runs a projector. There are a few novels with Byron as a vampire.

[michellemarie]

Oh wow, that should be so amazing! I adore hearing any good love story, so maybe like an article about one of the poet's real life loves and their story.

[Jansina/Ellianna]

Great ideas, Kevin!

Oh--that sounds awesome, Michelle Marie!