'[F]rom fifteen to seventeen" Austen assures us Catherine Morland was "in training for a heroine" and she does this by reading, although she does not have much of a taste for books that contain useful knowledge. The exception to this rule appears to be poetry books and Austen gives a list of maxims that Catherine acquires from poetry.
The poems in question are interesting for their old fashioned quality, particularly as Austen was fond of modern stuff. On Catherine's behalf she cites Alexander Pope, Gray's elegy, James Thompson* and three bits from Shakespeare. The first three are examples of poetic sensibility and the Shakespeare quotes fit in well with them.
Not one, and this is important, is a romantic poet. Romanticism is a word that was applied to the era in retrospect** in any case but it is important to note that Austen is not much concerned with the big guns of what we would call romantic poetry. As I blog through the six books (and yes, that is what I have decided to do without announcing it) I will be keeping an eye out but I cannot remember a single reference her contemporaries to Wordsworth, Coleridge or Byron anywhere in Austen.
The concern here is not Romanticism but sensibility.
I'll be coming back to this.
* Thomson, BTW, is also a favourite of young Anne Shirley's.
** Update: This is wrong. My fault for trusting someone else's essay without looking it up. The word was coming into use right around the time Austen was writing.
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