Description
Book SynopsisEducating the Romantic Poets: Life and Learning in the Anglo-Classical Academy, 1770-1850 explores how the public and endowed grammar schools and the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge trained some of the most important writers, critics, and public figures of the Romantic period. These institutions are recognized here as intentional partners and are discussed collectively as the “Anglo-classical academy”. The book shows how they not only schooled students in “classics, maths, and divinity” but also in accepted social behaviours, cultural values, political beliefs, and literary tastes. In so doing, this academy gave shape to the literature and spirit of the age.
By discussing the schools and the universities together and by focusing upon pedagogies and daily life as well as the texts and topics studied, this book shows as no other has done how writers and readers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries became such fluent linguists, skilled prosodists, and perceptive critics. As each chapter explores and comments upon the relational, intellectual, and cultural aspects of the Anglo-classical educational experience, it directs readers’ attention to the ways in which this information can be used to reread texts, reassess certain Romantics’ literary careers, and launch new lines of research.
Table of ContentsPreface
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Introduction
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England’s Public and Grammar Schools: First Lessons
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England’s Public and Grammar Schools: Lessons in Grammar, Memory, and Composition
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England’s Public and Grammar Schools: Lessons in Classical Literature, Rhetoric, Oratory, and Composition Training
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Religious Instruction and Worship in the Anglo-Classical Academy
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Oxford and Cambridge in the Romantic Period: “Operose ignorance” or “Good habits, and the principles of virtue and wisdom”?
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University Life
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The Curriculum of the English “Confessional” University: Heroes, Shepherds, and “Holding acquaintance with the stars"
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Pedagogies of Oxford and Cambridge in the Georgian Period
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The Educators of Oxford and Cambridge in the Georgian Period
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Leadership at Oxford and Cambridge
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Conclusions
