STOREY, Mark 1944-

PERSONAL: Born May 15, 1944.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—c/o University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, England. E-mail— [email protected].

CAREER: University of Birmingham, Birmingham, England, began as instructor in English literature, professor emeritus, 2000—.

WRITINGS:

Clare: The Critical Heritage, Routledge (London, England), 1973.

The Poetry of John Clare: A Critical Introduction, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1974.

Poetry and Humour from Cowper to Clough, Rowman & Littlefield (Totowa, NJ), 1979.

(Editor) The Letters of John Clare, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1985.

Byron and the Eye of Appetite, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1986.

(Editor) The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1987.

(Editor) John Clare: Selected Letters, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1988.

Poetry and Ireland since 1800: A Source Book, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1988.

Robert Southey: A Life, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1997.

The Problem of Poetry in the Romantic Period, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2000.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A selected edition of the poetry of Ebenezer Elliott, the "corn-law rhymer" (1781-1849).

SIDELIGHTS: Mark Storey's scholarly works deal primarily with poets born in the late eighteenth century: John Clare, Robert Southey, and Lord (George Gordon) Byron among them.

Storey has edited two editions of the letters of John Clare (1793-1864) and one volume of criticism about Clare; he has also written a critical introduction to the poet's work. In Clare: The Critical Heritage, Storey assembles the first-ever collection of primary-source criticisms of the Romantic "peasant poet," including assessments by Clare's contemporaries as well as twentieth-century critics up to 1964. In his introduction, Storey says "we ought now to take [Clare] seriously and without condescension." In The Poetry of John Clare: A Critical Introduction, Storey shows Clare's consistent development as a poet and provides evidence that Clare's break with traditional nature poetry made his personal vision possible.

In Poetry and Humour from Cowper to Clough, Storey offers "a delightful and expertly informative tour" of major English poets in the Romantic-Victorian tradition from the mid-1700s to the mid-1800s, according to W. W. Robson in the Review of English Studies. Storey is concerned with the relationship between humor and "serious poetry." Are they mutually exclusive? If so, how does one account for the comedy, satire, irony, and mockery found in some of the greatest poets of all? After a consideration of the comic tradition in eighteenth-century verse, Storey's main subjects include William Blake, William Wordsworth, William Cowper, Robert Southey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, and Lord Byron. Robson concluded that Storey "puts us in exactly the right mood to reread the serio-comic masterpieces he has done so much to help us appreciate."

Byron and the Eye of Appetite was called by British Book News critic Ian Scott-Kilvert "a specialized study, which requires a close familiarity with Byron's oeuvre for its appreciation." According to W. W. Robson in the Review of English Studies, one of the book's themes—"the preponderance of the visual in Byron's mode of imaginative perception"—is suggested by its title: "the eye of appetite," a phrase from Byron's Don Juan. Storey's work is concerned with Byron's narrative poems—principally with Childe Harold and Don Juan—rather than with the whole of Byron's work. Andrew Nicholson noted in Modern Language Review that "there is a fine critical mind at work here, and . . . his exegesis is remarkably fruitful and astute."

Poetry and Ireland since 1800: A Source Book is a collection of writings on Irish poetry that features W. B. Yeats, Matthew Arnold, and George Russell. It shows the extent to which poetry in Ireland has long been a strategically important cultural battleground. Another of Storey's recent works is a biography of Robert Southey (1774-1843), the first biography of the poet in over fifty years. Southey is typically remembered for his association with Coleridge and Wordsworth, and "unjustly regarded as 'the arch apostate of the Romantic period,'" according to Spectator critic Paul Jarmin; his poetry is now little read. Storey's Robert Southey: A Life is intended to help the passed-over poet "emerge from the shadow of his detractors," Jarmin observed. As noted in the Spectator review, Southey's contemporary, William Hazlitt, said of him, "He is the best and most natural, prose-writer of any poet of the day." Southey was also prolific: his writings include a ten-volume Poetical Works, a three-volume history of the Peninsular War, two biographies, two large treatises on the Anglican Church, five volumes of essays, editions of the complete works of William Cowper and Thomas Malory, and a seven-volume novel. Jarmin stated that "one cannot fail to be impressed by Storey's research" and concluded that "Storey's method of presenting this evidence will be found to be immensely readable."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Storey, Mark, Clare: The Critical Heritage, Routledge (London, England), 1973.

PERIODICALS

British Book News, January, 1987, Ian Scott-Kilvert, review of Byron and the Eye of Appetite, p. 47.

Choice, January, 1974, p. 1722; April, 1975, p. 224; December, 2000, G. A. Cevasco, review of The Problem of Poetry in the Romantic Period, p. 710.

Library Journal, January 15, 1975, p. 132.

Modern Language Review, January, 1989, Andrew Nicholson, review of Byron and the Eye of Appetite, pp. 131-132; July, 2002, Andrew Bennett, review of The Problem of Poetry in the Romantic Period, pp. 687-688.

Notes and Queries, December, 2001, Duncan Wu, review of The Problem of Poetry in the Romantic Period, p. 451.

Review of English Studies, August, 1980, W. W. Robson, review of Poetry and Humour from Cowper to Clough, pp. 356-360; February, 1988, p. 128; February, 1990, p. 146.

Spectator, August 2, 1997, Paul Jarmin, review of Poetry and Ireland since 1800: A Source Book, pp. 30-31.

Times Literary Supplement, July 27, 1973, p. 856.

Wordsworth Circle, autumn, 2001, Jeffrey C. Robinson, review of The Problem of Poetry in the Romantic Period, p. 188.