Romanticism, Nationalism, and the Revolt Against Theory

Romanticism, Nationalism, and the Revolt Against Theory PDF Author: David Simpson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226759466
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
Why has Anglo-American culture for so long regarded "theory" with intense suspicion? In this important contribution to the history of critical theory, David Simpson argues that a nationalist myth underlies contemporary attacks on theory. Theory's antagonists, Simpson shows, invoke the same criteria of common sense and national solidarity as did the British intellectuals who rebelled against "theory" and "method" during the French Revolution. Simpson demonstrates the close association between "theory" and "method" and shows that by the mid-eighteenth century, "method" had acquired distinctly subversive associations in England. Attributed increasingly to the French and the Germans, "method" paradoxically evoked images both of inhuman rationality and unbridled sentimentality; in either incarnation, it was seen as a threat to what was claimed to be authentically British. Simpson develops these paradigms in relation to feminism, the gendering of Anglo-American culture, and the emergence of literature and literary criticism as antitheoretical discourses. He then looks at the Romantic poets' response to this confining ideology of the cultural role of literature. Finally, Simpson considers postmodern theory's claims for the radical energy of nonrational or antirationalist positions. This is an essential book not only for students of the Romantic period and intellectual historians concerned with the idea of "method," but for anyone interested in the historical background of today's debates over the excesses and possibilities of "theory."

Romanticism, Nationalism, and the Revolt Against Theory

Romanticism, Nationalism, and the Revolt Against Theory PDF Author: David Simpson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226759466
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 255

Get Book Here

Book Description
Why has Anglo-American culture for so long regarded "theory" with intense suspicion? In this important contribution to the history of critical theory, David Simpson argues that a nationalist myth underlies contemporary attacks on theory. Theory's antagonists, Simpson shows, invoke the same criteria of common sense and national solidarity as did the British intellectuals who rebelled against "theory" and "method" during the French Revolution. Simpson demonstrates the close association between "theory" and "method" and shows that by the mid-eighteenth century, "method" had acquired distinctly subversive associations in England. Attributed increasingly to the French and the Germans, "method" paradoxically evoked images both of inhuman rationality and unbridled sentimentality; in either incarnation, it was seen as a threat to what was claimed to be authentically British. Simpson develops these paradigms in relation to feminism, the gendering of Anglo-American culture, and the emergence of literature and literary criticism as antitheoretical discourses. He then looks at the Romantic poets' response to this confining ideology of the cultural role of literature. Finally, Simpson considers postmodern theory's claims for the radical energy of nonrational or antirationalist positions. This is an essential book not only for students of the Romantic period and intellectual historians concerned with the idea of "method," but for anyone interested in the historical background of today's debates over the excesses and possibilities of "theory."

Romanticism, Nationalism, and the Revolt Against Theory

Romanticism, Nationalism, and the Revolt Against Theory PDF Author: David Simpson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226759456
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Why has Anglo-American culture for so long regarded "theory" with intense suspicion? In this important contribution to the history of critical theory, David Simpson argues that a nationalist myth underlies contemporary attacks on theory. Theory's antagonists, Simpson shows, invoke the same criteria of common sense and national solidarity as did the British intellectuals who rebelled against "theory" and "method" during the French Revolution. Simpson demonstrates the close association between "theory" and "method" and shows that by the mid-eighteenth century, "method" had acquired distinctly subversive associations in England. Attributed increasingly to the French and the Germans, "method" paradoxically evoked images both of inhuman rationality and unbridled sentimentality; in either incarnation, it was seen as a threat to what was claimed to be authentically British. Simpson develops these paradigms in relation to feminism, the gendering of Anglo-American culture, and the emergence of literature and literary criticism as antitheoretical discourses. He then looks at the Romantic poets' response to this confining ideology of the cultural role of literature. Finally, Simpson considers postmodern theory's claims for the radical energy of nonrational or antirationalist positions. This is an essential book not only for students of the Romantic period and intellectual historians concerned with the idea of "method," but for anyone interested in the historical background of today's debates over the excesses and possibilities of "theory."

History Derailed

History Derailed PDF Author: Ivan T. Berend
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520245253
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
Historian Iván Berend turns his attention to Central and Eastern Europe in the 19th century, a turbulent period. Extending up to World War I, the period contained the seeds of developments and crises that continue to haunt the region today.

The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism

The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism PDF Author: Stuart Curran
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139824864
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
This new edition of The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism has been fully revised and updated and includes two wholly new essays, one on recent developments in the field, and one on the rapidly expanding publishing industry of this period. It also features a comprehensive chronology and a fully up-to-date guide to further reading. For the past decade and more the Companion has been a much-admired and widely-used account of the phenomenon of British Romanticism that has inspired students to look at Romantic literature from a variety of critical angles and approaches. In this new incarnation, the volume will continue to be a standard guide for students of Romantic literature and its contexts.

The Broadview Anthology of Literature of the Revolutionary Period 1770-1832

The Broadview Anthology of Literature of the Revolutionary Period 1770-1832 PDF Author:
Publisher: Broadview Press
ISBN:
Category : English literature
Languages : en
Pages : 1609

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Book Description


The Broadview Anthology of Literature of the Revolutionary Period 1770-1832

The Broadview Anthology of Literature of the Revolutionary Period 1770-1832 PDF Author: D.L. Macdonald
Publisher: Broadview Press
ISBN: 1551110512
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 1609

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Book Description
The selections from 132 authors in this anthology represent gender, social class, and racial and national origin as inclusively as possible, providing both greater context for canonical works and a sense of the era’s richness and diversity. In terms of genre, poetry, non-fiction prose, philosophy, educational writing, and prose fiction are included. Geographically, America, Canada, Australia, India, and Africa are represented along with Britain, emphasizing Romantic literature as a world literature. Biographical headnotes, explanatory footnotes, and an extensive bibliography clarify and illuminate the texts for readers.

Romantic Misfits

Romantic Misfits PDF Author: R. Miles
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230582273
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
This book explores the false starts and disturbances of Romantic writing in Britain - 'misfits' and misfittings - as both a constitutive challenge to canonical romanticism and a distinctive literary field worth examining on its own account. Misfits include the Shakespeare forger W.H. Ireland, the novel itself, and the culture of Dissent.

Engaged Romanticism

Engaged Romanticism PDF Author: Mark Lussier
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443812145
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
In November 2006, the International Conference on Romanticism convened for its annual conference on the campus of Arizona State University and explored a wide range of work identified as “engaged romantic,” as a mode and a practice, rather than simply as a literary historical period defined by a specific temporal spectrum (c. 1750-1850). As the introduction to the volume suggests, most writers during the period were actively engaged in the cultural articulation of the aesthetics, criticism, ethics, poetics, and politics of the age, and a large number of writers deployed their talents to help transform the public sphere, whether shaping responses to the practices of slavery or resisting the emergence of a crystallized form of Newtonianism at the foundation of Enlightenment epistemology. The intellectual and disciplinary range of the essays included in this volume pay tribute to this often neglected aspect of the revolutionary dictates of what has come to be called “Romanticism,” and the following critical essays, offered by both thoroughly established and relatively new voices within Romantic Studies, examine virtually every aspect of this approach to Romantic thought and writing. Whether focused on the formal and intellectual practices at the foundation of the novel, the philosophical resonance of William Wordsworth within emergent forms of eco-criticism, the play of the transatlantic Romantic imagination, the aesthetic commitments of Romantic art and music, or the current process of pedagogical engagements, the essays sound the depths of what engaged practice can accomplish, both in the age of Romanticism itself as well as our own moment.

The Constitution of English Literature

The Constitution of English Literature PDF Author: Michael Gardiner
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1780931085
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
In this extended essay, Michael Gardiner examines the ideology of the discipline of English Literature in the light of the serious redefining work on England and Englishness that has been conductedin Political Studiesin the last decade. He argues that English Literature emerges from the development of the state and that consequently it has suppressed the idea of the nation. His claim is that English Literature has lost its form since its methodology and canonicity depended so heavily on a constitutional form which can no longer be defended. He calls upon those working in English Literature to recognise that they are not really participating in the same discipline, defined by the Burkean constitutional settlement, even if they think of themselves as writing 'within the canon'. His view is that a lack of appreciation of 'hard-edged' political factors have led to a 'continuant' and regressive form of English Literature which tends to hang on to stifling methodologies. In its place, he appeals for the creation of a more open-ended, inclusive, internationalist, and comparative 'literature of England'.

Romantic Realities

Romantic Realities PDF Author: Evan Gottlieb
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 074869143X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Reads Romantic literature through the lens of 21st century speculative realist philosophyRead and download the series editor's preface (by Graham Harman) and the Introduction to Romantic Realities for free nowSpeculative realism is one of the most exciting, influential and controversial new branches of philosophy to emerge in recent years. Now, Evan Gottlieb shows that the speculative realism movement bears striking a resemblance to the ideas and beliefs of the best-known British poets of the Romantic era.Romantic Realities analyses the parallels and echoes between the ideas of the most influential contemporary practitioners of speculative realism and the poetry and poetics of the most innovative Romantic poets. In doing so, it introduces you to the intellectual precedents and contemporary stakes of speculative realism, together with new understandings of the philosophical underpinnings and far-reaching insights of British Romanticism.Readings include:The poetry and poetics of Wordsworth in relation to Graham Harman's object-oriented ontology and Timothy Morton's dark ecologyColeridge's poems and ideas in relation to Ray Brassier's philosophical nihilism and Iain Hamilton Grant's revisionist readings of SchellingShelley's oeuvre in relation to Quentin Meillassoux's radical immanentism and Manuel DeLanda's process ontologyByron's best-known poems in relation to Alain Badiou's truth procedures and Bruno Latour's actor-network-theoryKeats' oeuvre in relation to Levi Bryant's onticology and Ian Bogost's alien phenomenology"e;