{"product_id":"9780008358686","title":"The Making of Poetry: Coleridge, the Wordsworths and Their Year of Marvels","description":"\u003cp\u003e\n          \u003cstrong\u003eSHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD 2019\u003c\/strong\u003e\n        \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\n          \u003cstrong\u003eWordsworth and Coleridge as you’ve never seen them before in this new book by Adam Nicolson, brimming with poetry, art and nature writing. Proof that poetry can change the world.\u003c\/strong\u003e\n        \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is the most famous year in English poetry. Out of it came \u003cem\u003eThe Ancient Mariner\u003c\/em\u003e and ‘Kubla Khan’, as well as Coleridge’s unmatched hymns to friendship and fatherhood, Wordsworth’s revolutionary verses in \u003cem\u003eLyrical Ballads\u003c\/em\u003e and the greatness of ‘Tintern Abbey’, his paean to the unity of soul and cosmos, love and understanding. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBestselling and award-winning writer Adam Nicolson tells the story, almost day by day, of the year in the late 1790s that Coleridge, Wordsworth, his sister Dorothy and an ever-shifting cast of friends, dependants and acolytes spent together in the Quantock Hills in Somerset.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTo a degree never shown before, \u003cem\u003eThe Making of Poetry\u003c\/em\u003e explores the idea that these poems came from this place, and that only by experiencing the physical circumstances of the year, in all weathers and all seasons, at night and at dawn, in sunlit reverie and moonlit walks, can the genesis of the poetry start to be understood.  \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat emerges is a portrait of these great figures as young people, troubled, ambitious, dreaming of a vision of wholeness, knowing they had greatness in them but still in urgent search of the paths towards it. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe poetry they made was not from settled conclusions but from the adventure on which they were all embarked, seeing what they wrote as a way of stripping away all the dead matter, exfoliating consciousness, penetrating its depths. Poetry for them was not an ornament for civilisation but a challenge to it, a means of remaking the world.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Making of Poetry is a compelling exploration of the English and European literary scene during the Georgian era. Nicolson's insightful criticism and analysis of the works of Wordsworth and Coleridge offer a fresh perspective on this pivotal period in literary history.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor fans of General Stanley Mcchrystal (My Share of the Task), Robert Macfarlane (The Gifts of Reading), Emily R. Wilson (Seneca), Tom Holland (The Rest is History), and Olivia Laing (The Lonely City).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Adam Nicolson, Read by Roger Davis","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46889042051221,"sku":"9780008358686","price":35.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0484\/3175\/9509\/files\/9780008358686_78fcda80-8c2c-456f-b53f-20a60dba703f.jpg?v=1776888185","url":"https:\/\/harpercollins.com.au\/products\/9780008358686","provider":"HarperCollins AU","version":"1.0","type":"link"}