The Figure of the Artist in English Romantic Poetry

Abstract

The role which the poet or author plays in society and the functions that are assigned to him are not everywhere the same. Authorship is a complexly codified notion which is not solely marked by the appearance of a name in a particular position on the spine of a book. It is from the Romantic period that we derive our notions of the author as an emitter or source, the issuing of a distinctive viewpoint from a de-localised source into the arena of public discourse. The author’s subject becomes simultaneously his own property and at the same time the index of a distinctive individuality. Symptomatic of these tendencies in poetry is Cowper’s The Task (1785), which begins with the words, ‘I sing the sofa.’ On the face of it this opening is not very different from that of Dyer’s The Fleece (1757):

The care of sheep, the labours of the loom,

And arts of trade, I sing.