A Century of Sonnets

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A Century of Sonnets highlights the enduring legacy of sonnets from the Romantic era, showcasing beloved works like Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias," John Keats's "On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer," and William Wordsworth's "Composed Upon Westminster Bridge." The anthology traces the sonnet revival in England, beginning with Thomas Edwards and Charlotte Smith and culminating with Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Edited by Paula R. Feldman and Daniel Robinson, this collection is the first in modern times to gather nearly five hundred sonnets from 1750 to 1850, featuring 81 poets, almost half of whom are women. It includes significant but rare sonnet sequences such as Wordsworth's The River Duddon, Mary Robinson's Sappho and Phaon, and Robert Southey's Poems on the Slave Trade, alongside Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese. The poems encompass a wide array of human emotions and themes—love, grief, politics, friendship, nature, art, and the essence of poetry itself. This anthology reveals that the sonnet form not only survived the English Renaissance but flourished during the Romantic period, producing a rich body of work that continues to resonate with contemporary poets.