Synopses & Reviews
Romantic Vagrancy offers a provocative account of Wordsworth's representation of walking as the exercise of imagination, by tracing a recurrent analogy between the poet in search of materials and the literally dispossessed beggars and vagrants he encounters. Reading Wordsworth--and Rousseau before him--from the perspective of current debates about the political and social rights of the homeless, Celeste Langan argues that both literature and vagrancy are surprisingly rich and disturbing images of the 'negative freedom' at the heart of liberalism. Langan shows how the formal structure of the Romantic poem--the improvisational excursion--mirrors its apparent themes, often narratives of impoverishment or abandonment. According to Langan, the encounter between the beggar and the passerby in Wordsworth's poetry does not simply reveal a social conscience or its lack; it represents the advent of the liberal subject, whose identity is stretched out between origin and destination, caught between economic and political forces, and the workings of desire. Langan's powerful and innovative argument revises current views both of Wordsworth's poetry and of the relation of literature to its social and political context.
Review
"Advanced scholars of Romanticism may find this erudite study of some interest." Choice"This is an extraordinarily important, exhilirating and brilliant piece of work on Wordsworth, and one of the most interesting pieces of critical inquiry on any subject I have read in some time." Alan Liu"The philosophical integrity Langan achieves-forcing the reader to experience textual vagrancy as pathology, not claiming to escape it herself-is impressive. So is the fecundity of her critique....Celeste Langan's efforts open discussions of great potential, as we continue to engage the meaning of our own mobility." Anne D. Wallace, Nineteenth-Century Literature"...this study synthesizes an array of materials through an ambitious method that id both detail-minded and far-reaching in scope. The complex critical judgements that result are often dazzling and always thoughtful." Toby Benis, The Wordsworth Circle"Romantic Vagrancy is well informed by theories of property, value and identity in Kant, Marx, Adorno and Simmel." Timothy Morton, Studies in Romanticism
Review
"Advanced scholars of Romanticism may find this erudite study of some interest." Choice"This is an extraordinarily important, exhilirating and brilliant piece of work on Wordsworth, and one of the most interesting pieces of critical inquiry on any subject I have read in some time." Alan Liu"The philosophical integrity Langan achieves-forcing the reader to experience textual vagrancy as pathology, not claiming to escape it herself-is impressive. So is the fecundity of her critique....Celeste Langan's efforts open discussions of great potential, as we continue to engage the meaning of our own mobility." Anne D. Wallace, Nineteenth-Century Literature"...this study synthesizes an array of materials through an ambitious method that id both detail-minded and far-reaching in scope. The complex critical judgements that result are often dazzling and always thoughtful." Toby Benis, The Wordsworth Circle"Romantic Vagrancy is well informed by theories of property, value and identity in Kant, Marx, Adorno and Simmel." Timothy Morton, Studies in Romanticism
Review
"Advanced scholars of Romanticism may find this erudite study of some interest." Choice"This is an extraordinarily important, exhilirating and brilliant piece of work on Wordsworth, and one of the most interesting pieces of critical inquiry on any subject I have read in some time." Alan Liu"The philosophical integrity Langan achieves-forcing the reader to experience textual vagrancy as pathology, not claiming to escape it herself-is impressive. So is the fecundity of her critique....Celeste Langan's efforts open discussions of great potential, as we continue to engage the meaning of our own mobility." Anne D. Wallace, Nineteenth-Century Literature"...this study synthesizes an array of materials through an ambitious method that id both detail-minded and far-reaching in scope. The complex critical judgements that result are often dazzling and always thoughtful." Toby Benis, The Wordsworth Circle"Romantic Vagrancy is well informed by theories of property, value and identity in Kant, Marx, Adorno and Simmel." Timothy Morton, Studies in Romanticism
Synopsis
Reading Wordsworth - and Rousseau before him - from the perspective of recent debates about the political and social rights of the homeless, Celeste Langan argues that both literature and vagrancy are surprisingly rich and disturbing images of the ânegative freedomâat the heart of liberalism.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 272-299) and index.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments; List of abbreviations; A methodological preamble; Introduction; 1. Rousseau plays the beggar: the last words of citizen subject; 2. Money walks: Wordsworth and the right to wander; 3. Walking and talking at the same time: the âtwo historiesâof The Prelude; 4. The walking cure; Notes; Works cited; Index.