From: David Radcliffe, Virginia Tech
I'm pleased to announce the web publication of a project I've been working
on for fifteen years: English Poetry 1579-1830: Spenser and the
Tradition. This (mostly) full-text database tracks literary genealogies
in English poetry from Spenser to the romantics, containing well over a
million lines of verse (bare-bones text) linked to criticism and biography
for over a thousand writers.
The URL is http://englishpoetry.org/
The project attempts full enumerations of significant series of poems --
works in Spenserian stanzas, dialect pastorals, imitations of Spenser and
Milton, Collins and Gray, Burns and Byron -- enabling scholars to track
developments in English poetry in an unprecedented degree of detail.
Since the larger point is to relate traditions in writing to traditions in
reading, the database also attempts to trace the critical reception (or
neglect) of all the poems and authors included.
"English Poetry" differs from most other literary databases in ways that I
hope will make it particularly useful to literary historians, such as
gathering in one place work by English, Scottish, Irish, and American
writers. The poems are indexed by topic, genre, and verse form, and are
linked to biographical and demographic information so that one could, for
example, search for imitations of Gray's Elegy composed by American poets,
Cambridge graduates, or associates of Thomas Warton. The database is
designed to allow easy movement between a poet's verse and what they had
to say as a critic of their peers and predecessors. Perhaps it will prove
most useful as a copious source of material about major and minor writers
drawn from out-of-the-way sources.
I would welcome the assistance of members of the BARS list in correcting
errors and filling in omissions. Like other projects undertaken by
overweening antiquaries this one has its quirks, but with your assistance
I will try to make it more accurate, intelligible, and up to date than it
would otherwise be.
Sincerely,
David Radcliffe
Department of English
Virginia Tech
*********************************************************
British Association for Romantic Studies
http://www.bars.ac.uk
To advertise Romantic literature conferences, publications, jobs, or
other events that the BARS members would be interested in, please
contact Sharon Ruston <[log in to unmask]>
Also use this address to register any change in your e-mail address,
or to be removed from the list.
Messages are held in archives, along with other information about the
Mailbase at: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/bars.html
*********************************************************
|