Short description:

Andrew Lang (1844-1912) made his name in the last quarter of the Victorian era in a remarkable number of literary and intellectual fields. This is the first annotated edition of Lang?s poems, bringing together his books of verse and over 150 additional poems, many of them collected for the first time.

Long description:

Andrew Lang (1844?1912) made his name in the last quarter of the Victorian era in a remarkable number of literary and intellectual fields, as popular poet, influential literary critic, editor of the classic series of Fairy Books for the young, and as author of groundbreaking books on anthropology, Homeric scholarship, folklore and history. This is the first annotated edition of Lang?s poems, bringing together his books of verse and over 150 additional poems, many of them collected for the first time.

John Sloan?s introduction provides a compelling account of Lang?s achievements as a poet whose first two books of verse, Ballads and Lyrics of Old France and Ballades in Blue China, were a harbinger of the English aesthetic movement. Lang helped to create an abiding interest in French poetry and to encourage a new spirit of literary cosmopolitanism in England. He also widened the appeal of poetry in an age of new knowledge, advancing literacy and the growth of the popular press. The authoritative text is accompanied by extensive notes identifying important allusions and significant connections between the poems and Lang?s other writings. In the headnote to each poem, the reader will find a record of publication history, textual variants and sources, including details of the original sources of Lang?s verse translations from the French, Greek and Latin.

The edition offers an invaluable guide to the study of Lang?s poetry for students and scholars of nineteenth-century British poetry.

Table of Contents:

Preface
Abbreviations

Introduction

PART ONE: BOOKS OF VERSE

Lyrics  

Ballads

Ballads of Modern Greece

Greek Folk Songs

Ave

Verses on Pictures

Songs and Sonnets

Sonnets to Poets

Ballades

Verses and Translations

Rhymes ? la Mode

Art

Science

Cameos ? Sonnets from the Antique

Ave

Old Rhymes

Deeds of Men

Sonnets

?In Silly Sooth'

The Little Garland

Rhodocleia

Dedicatory

Loyal Lyrics

Cricket Rhymes

Critical of Life, Art and Literature

Jubilee Poems

French Peasant Songs

Ballads

PART TWO: ADDITIONAL POEMS

Early Verse 1863?1871

Poems, Songs and Verses 1878?1910

Dedications, Inscriptions and Poems to Friends and Family

Poems from Fictional Tales

Translations

From the French

From the Latin

From the Greek

Index