Romanticism at the End of History

Jerome Christensen

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Year: 2003
• eBook ISBN: 9780801874987
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

The Romantics lived through a turn of the century that, like our own, seemed to mark an end to history as it had long been understood. They faced accelerated change, including unprecedented state power, armies capable of mass destruction, a polyglot imperial system, and a market economy driven by speculation. In Romanticism at the End of History, Jerome Christensen challenges the prevailing belief that the Romantics were reluctant to respond to social injustice. Through provocative and searching readings of the poetry of Wordsworth; the poems, criticism, and journalism of Coleridge; the Confessions of De Quincey; and Sir Walter Scott's Waverley, Christensen concludes that during complicated times of war and revolution English Romantic writers were forced to redefine their role as artists.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 The Romantic Movement at the End of History
• 2 The Color of Imagination and the Office of Romantic Criticism
• 3 Ecce Homo: The End of the French Revolution and the Romantic Reinvention of English Verse
• 4 The Dark Romanticism of the Edinburgh Review
• 5 Romantic Hope: The Maid of Buttermere, the Right to Write, and the Future of Liberalism
• 6 Clerical Liberalism: Walter Scott’s World Picture
• 7 Using: Romantic Ethics and Digital Media in the Ruins of the University
• Notes
• Index