Lilla Maria Crisafulli, and Cecilia Pietropoli, eds. Romantic Women Poets: Genre and Gender. New York: Rodopi, 2007. ISBN: 978-90-420-2247-8 Price: US$76 Stephen Behrendt. British Women Poets and the Romantic Writing Community. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780801890543 Price: $65.00

In his ambitious study of British women poets, Stephen Behrendt encourages us to embrace the ambiguities involved in conceiving “British Romanticism.” He argues that by refusing to evade the complexities of this period, we can recreate a more faithful cultural and literary landscape, undetermined by ideas surrounding “the big six.” He is especially interested in how the role of women’s writing can revolutionise our literary and cultural assumptions. As indicated by the monograph’s title, at the heart of this study is the concept of “community”; Behrendt argues that poets, both male and female, made literary production an ongoing, interactive conversation by engaging with, and then responding to, each other’s work. This “community building,” he suggests, was obvious to contemporary readers and became a vital aspect of the reading process. His purpose throughout this study then, is to impress the advantages of a more inclusive approach to Romantic literature. More specifically, Behrendt desires that we appreciate women writers as part of the literary, cultural, and political community, regardless of their level of celebrity. The thirteen essays edited by Lilla Maria Crisafulli and Cecilia Pietropoli similarly aim to redress the historical neglect of women’s writing, yet because of the divergent assumptions underlying this book, its overall effect is strikingly different. These essays work within the framework of “Romanticism,” presuming a certain fluidity of the term, and rightfully expecting a prior regard for each well-known female writer discussed. It is not therefore a defence of women’s writing in the same way, but an affirmation and explanation of its aesthetic value. The editors argue that “Paradoxically, women’s marginalisation leads to a newly acquired liberty of expression, which opens up new literary perspectives, and allows women to confront public subjects from an unusual point of view” (3). Thus, while the essays work from a concerned awareness for gender inequality, each is more interested in offering a focused analysis of women’s essential contribution to Romanticism because of gender subjugation, not in spite of it. Accordingly, in terms of promoting the importance and impact of women’s writing during this period, the collection is an important and powerful one. Beginning with Behrendt, however, one is immediately drawn to his superb historical contextualisation of literature alongside an original argument that also makes for a provocative work. The first of the six chapters, “Women Writers, Radical Rhetoric, and the Public,” establishes women’s “remarkably consistent involvement with radical social and political subject matter and ideology” (42). Reminding us of poetry’s particular power for controversial political commentary (which, he suggests, was of more importance than aesthetic considerations in this period), Behrendt gives examples from both renowned figures (Mary Robinson, Helen Maria Williams, Charlotte Smith) and lesser-known women poets (“F.A.C”, Anne Macvicar Grant, Elizabeth Moody) to demonstrate their astute political agendas. “Women Poets during the War Years” uses statistics and commentary to reawaken the reader’s awareness to the serious impact of war in this period (especially for ordinary citizens) something Behrendt feels we can too often underrate. By discussing the poetry of a variety of relatively unknown women poets, he highlights the expanse of women engaging with current affairs. Chapter Three, “Women and the Sonnet” uses the period’s particular appetite for the sonnet to reflect on the intertextual conversations between women poets. Through his comparative approach (of Smith, Robinson and Seward first, and the currently unfamiliar Anna Maria Smallpiece, Martha Hanson and Mary F. Johnson second), Behrendt argues that female poets invited readers to recognise their literary conversations and unique poetic choices. Chapter Two, “Experimenting with Genre,” analyses how a variety of women adapted different genres to achieve their entrance into the “masculine” …