Foreword

The compilation of this work had taken considerable time and effort as the basic aim in editing this anthology, in the first place, was to provide an easy-to-use and accessable material for the teachers, as well as for the students within the sphere of Hungarian higher education. The intention was to include not only the poems, but also a brief overview of the poet's life, achievement and major role within English literary history, which would provide students with enough information at first glance to be able to understand and classify the poet chronologically according to his/her specific age and place within the English Literary Canon.

The principle of selection has been defined by a fourfold ambition. The anthology endeavours to provide Hungarian students studying English at the B. A. and M. A. levels with a comprehensive resource material that reflects the new critical awareness created by the most significant critical approaches that have redefined "tradition" in the English, Scottish and Irish poetic history by the beginning of the 21st century. An attempt has been made to give due emphasis to female poets brought into focus by feminist criticism (Aphra Behn, Emily Brontë, Christina Rossetti), to texts distinguished by deconstruction (e.g. Percy Shelley's Triumph of Life) and poems representing poetic careers that the New Historicists have found representative of the ever varying but specific historical millieu (John Clare, Charlotte Smith, and Anna Letitia Barbauld). Another important ambition of the compiler has been to reflect, in a modest way, Hungarian literary history, including cases of direct influence (Pope's mock heroic epic and Essay on Man exercising a decisive influence on Mihály Csokonai and György Bessenyei) and influence through translation (Sir Patrick Spens). Last but not least, a specific aim has been to offer poems which may lend themselves easily to classroom treatment in teaching English as a foreign language in this country.

We sincerely hope that the anthology will enable Hungarian students majoring in English language and literature to benefit from the wide selection of poets and their works presented here, thereby helping to enhance and further their studies, and simultaneously awaken their interest in further research and study within the field of English poetry. I would like to thank all my colleagues at János Kodolányi University College, who have helped with their numerous comments and advice in the making of this anthology, because it would not have been written without them. And a very special thanks to Professor Ágnes Péter for her advice, comments and help in the selection of the material and Keith Hardwick for his comments and corrections.

Krisztina Kodó, Ph.D
Editor