Middling Romanticism

Examines various forms of the middle (such as the medium, moderation, and mediocrity) that re-negotiated in the writings of British and German romanticism, along with a consideration of how our own relationship to romanticism is influenced by its medial thinking.

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Romanticism is often understood as an age of extremes, yet it also marks the birth of the modern medium in all senses of the word. Engaging with key texts of the romantic period, the book outlines a wide-reaching project to re-imagine the middle as a constitutive principle. Sng argues that Romanticism dislodges such terms as medium, moderation, and mediation from serving as mere self-evident tools that conduct from one pole to another. Instead, they offer a dwelling in and with the middle: an attention to intervals, interstices, and gaps that make these terms central to modern understandings of relation.