A Handbook of Romanticism Studies

The Handbook to Romanticism Studies is an accessible and indispensible resource providing students and scholars with a rich array of historical and up-to-date critical and theoretical contexts for the study of Romanticism.

• Focuses on British Romanticism while also addressing continental and transatlantic Romanticism and earlier periods
• Utilizes keywords such as imagination, sublime, poetics, philosophy, race, historiography, and visual culture as points of access to the study of Romanticism and the theoretical concerns and the culture of the period
• Explores topics central to Romanticism studies and the critical trends of the last thirty years

Acknowledgments vii

Notes on Contributors ix

Introduction 1
Joel Faflak and Julia M. Wright

Part 1: Aesthetics and Media 17

1 Imagination 19
Richard C. Sha

2 Sensibility 37
Julie Ellison

3 Sublime 55
Anne Janowitz

4 Periodicals 69
Kristin Flieger Samuelian and Mark Schoenfield

5 Visual Culture 87
Sophie Thomas

Part 2: Theories of Literature 105

6 Author 107
Elizabeth A. Fay

7 Reader 125
Stephen C. Behrendt

8 Poetics 143
Jacqueline Labbe

9 Narrative 159
Jillian Heydt-Stevenson

10 Drama 177
David Worrall

11 Gothic 195
Jerrold E. Hogle

12 Satire 213
Steven E. Jones

Part 3: Ideologies and Institutions 225

13 Historiography 227
Ted Underwood

14 Ideology 245
Orrin N. C. Wang

15 Nation and Empire 259
Julia M. Wright

16 Class 277
Michael Scrivener

17 Race 289
Peter J. Kitson

18 Gender and Sexuality 307
Kari Lokke

Part 4: Disciplinary Intersections 325

19 Philosophy 327
Marc Redfield

20 Religion 339
Michael Tomko

21 Science 357
Theresa M. Kelley

22 Medicine 375
James Robert Allard

23 Psychology 391
Joel Faflak

Index 409

“A Handbook of Romanticism Studiesis an engaging and exciting collection of essays edited by Joel Faflak and Julia M. Wright. Organised around a set of key terms – including ‘imagination’, and ‘poetics’, as well as ‘race’, ‘gender’, ‘drama’, ‘satire’, and ‘science’, – the volume charts the ‘sea changes’ that Romanticism studies has undergone during the last thirty years (p.6). . . In its declared endeavour ‘to help the reader through this renovated and diverse field’ (p.6), A Handbook is unquestionably successful.” (Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 25 November 2015)

Joel Faflak is Associate Professor of English and Theory at the University of Western Ontario. He is author of Romantic Psychoanalysis: The Burden of the Mystery (2007), co-author of Revelation and Knowledge (2011) and editor of Sanity, Madness, Transformation: The Psyche of Romanticism (2005).

Julia M. Wright is Canada Research Chair in European Studies at Dalhousie University. She is the author of Blake, Nationalism and the Politics of Alienation (2004) and Ireland, India, and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Literature (2007) and the editor of Irish Literature 1750-1900: An Anthology (Wiley-Blackwell, 2008) and the 2-volume A Companion to Irish Literature (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010).

A Handbook of Romanticism Studies features a collection of original essays by leading scholars, examining the literature of the Romantic period through the lens of critical and cultural theory. The entries explore key terms organized under the headings of Aesthetics and Media, Theories of Literature, Ideologies and Institutions, and Disciplinary Intersections. Some of these terms have been central to Romanticism studies for some time, such as imagination, sublime, and poetics. Other terms reflect critical trends of the last thirty years, including philosophy, race, historiography, and visual culture. The result is a collection which provides both introductory overviews and in-depth analyses of a variety of topics, offering a wide range of entry points to the study of Romanticism, from debates over the formal properties of high art to the impact of philosophical and scientific debates on conceptions of culture and cultural works. A Handbook of Romanticism Studies is an accessible and indispensible resource providing both students and scholars with a rich array of historical and up-to-date critical and theoretical contexts for the study of the literature and culture of the Romantic period.