Great Narrative Poems of the Romantic Age (unabridged) (Read by John Moffatt, Samuel West, Sarah Woodward)

Music by Beethoven, Torelli, Vivaldi, Dalza, Bantock and Capelli.

Narrative poetry enjoyed an extraordinary revival during the Romantic period and throughout the Victorian age: almost all the great poets of the century made important contributions, many of which are represented in this anthology.

The medieval era had also been an age of narrative verse - Chaucer's Canterbury Tales stands out, of course, but works like Gawain and the Green Knight and the great ballads of Scotland and the border country are almost as impressive in their vividness and artistry. Spenser's The Faerie Queene and Milton's Paradise Lost may represent the Renaissance period in England, while we should also notice (for example) Pope's mock-epic The Rape of the Lock from the 18th century.

Yet the richness of narrative poetry from the 19th century remains outstanding. Many of these poets found particular inspiration in the Middle Ages, responding to a world in which life, death and religion - as well as the supernatural - were invested with a peculiar intensity, passion and significance. The sense of mystery - of 'romance' - appealed directly to the Romantic sensibility, reacting as it did to the apparently impersonal rationality of Augustan thought. But each poet responds differently and distinctively: Coleridge emphasizes the struggle between good and evil, between the Christian and the diabolic; Keats delights in a world of sensation encompassed by the threat of death; Tennyson depicts the tragic dissolution of a golden age; while Morris stresses the brutality beneath the heraldic charm of 'medievalism'.