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by Beth Lau This edition and analysis of John Keats's marginalia in his personal copy of Milton's epic poem makes available for the first time all of Keats's Paradise Lost annotations and textual markings. It is the most accurate and fully annotated edition of the marginalia available. Accompanying discussion analyzes patterns and themes in Keats’s Paradise Lost marginalia, dates, them, and explores the practice of writing in books in the early 19th century. Lau's work presents new primary Keats material and offers the first formal study of this neglected aspect of Keats’s canon. Keats's marginalia convey a wealth of information about his reading habits and aesthetic tastes generally, as well as about his life, personality, and creative process. It also enhances our understanding of Milton's deep and far-ranging influence on Keats's thought and work. In addition, the book makes an important contribution to the study of marginalia as a genre--one that flourished in the Romantic era. Finally, it helps to document a stage of history in the reception of Milton's poem and therefore will be of interest to Milton scholars as well as to Keats and Romantics scholars. Beth Lau is professor of English at California State University, Long Beach. She is the author of Keats's Reading of the Romantic Poets and coeditor of Approaches to Teaching Brontė's Jane Eyre. She has also published a number of articles on Keats and other Romantic writers. 1998. 240 pp. 6 X 9. 6 b&w illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 0-8130-1579-0 Cloth, $55.00
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"A work of conscientious scholarship that will long remain genuinely valuable to scholars in the field." --
The Wordsworth Circle "Whether one's concern is with Keats's developing aesthetic, with poetic influence as traditionally understood, or with the cultural matrix of his literary production-a matrix that included the constant and enthusiastic interchange of letters, drafts of poems, and annotated books among members of Keat's circle-this volume will stimulate a provocative reassessment of Keat's work."
--Review of English Studies "This is an original, challenging, lucid book, a 'must' for anybody who needs to know all there is to know about Keats's odes."
--Modern Language Review "Lau's finest achievement is how she brings to bear her talents as an impressive reader of primary textual evidence in her interrogation of larger theoretical questions of intertextuality and 'anxiety of influence.'" -- New Books in Nineteenth-Century Studies
"Indispensable . . . Lau's edition will prove of
inestimable benefit as a rich textual resource for
scholars, teachers, and students working on a variety of
cutting-edge topics."--Greg Kucich,
University of Notre Dame
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