The Romantic Period: The Intellectual & Cultural Context of English Literature 1789-1830

This book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date account of the intellectual and cultural background to Romantic literature. Accessibly written and avoiding theoretical jargon, the author begins with two chapters that establish the broad historical and geographical coordinates of English Romanticism.

The book then goes on to look at:

• the changing literary marketplace and so-called ¿circulation revolution¿

• the troubled territories of education and family life
• crucial developments in the natural sciences, religious controversies and the crisis of Anglicanism
• the emergence of a modern historical consciousness
• major trends in aesthetics and the visual arts

Also accompanied by a detailed chronology and plentiful suggestions for further reading, this book provides a solid foundation for students to make their own sense of the poetry, fiction and other creative writing that emerged as part of the Romantic literary tradition.

Robin Jarvis is Reader in the Department of English at the University of the West of England, Bristol.

Romanticism

'an essential resource for understanding the period'

Times Higher Educational Supplement  

“Written in a highly attractive and accessible style capable of hooking the reader into its narrative of ideas, events and personalities. It should feature as essential reading on all course lists”.

Peter J Kitson, University of Dundee

1. The Political and Economic Scene

2. Travel, Exploration, and the Geographies of Mind

3. The Literary Marketplace

4. Education and the Family

5. Science

6. Religion and Ethics

7. The Sense of the Past

8. Aesthetics and the Visual Arts

Chronology

General Bibliographies

Individual Authors

Index