Routledge Revivals: the Collected Poems of Christopher Smart (1949)

Book excerpt: First published in 1949, this book presents the collected works of eighteenth-century poet, Christopher Smart. Smart's character and his poetry are difficult to disentangle - both egocentric, given to exhibitionism, childish, oscillating between the extremes of self-belittlement and self-glorification. Few other poets, however, match him in directness of expression. It is the aim of this edition to present as complete a text as possible in the way that Smart himself would have seen it and, in giving some account of the poet's life, to link his poetry with it. The book will be of interest to students of eighteenth-century literature and history.