The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism

A unique introduction, guide, and reference work for students and readers of Romantic literature, consisting of eleven original essays.

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This Companion offers a unique introduction, guide, and reference work for students and readers of Romantic literature. The age of British Romanticism was a period of turbulent transition between the professed stability of the Enlightenment before it and the Victorian middle-class culture which succeeded it. Against a background of international warfare, the Romantic age embodied in its greatest literature a sense of competing values and ideals explored sceptically in the creative process, rather than dogmatic certainties fulfilled in its completion. Recent scholarship has led to the rejection of the easy categories once used to label Romanticism, but until now there has been no concerted attempt to represent to students of the period the full range of conflicting forces responsible for its dynamic literature. The eleven original essays which make up this volume make a significant contribution to our understanding of the period, providing readers with clear and coherent access to the historical roots, intellectual ferment, and cultural range of British Romanticism. It includes a chronology of major publications and events, and an extensive guide to further reading.