Description
Book SynopsisWhile scholars have long noted the fascination with Roman literature and history expressed by many preeminent British cultural figures of the early and middle-eighteenth century, they have only sparingly commented on the increasingly vexed role Rome played during the subsequent Romantic period. This critical oversight has skewed our understanding of British Romanticism as being either a full-scale rejection of classical precedents or an embrace of Greece at the expense of Rome. In contrast, Romantic Antiquity argues that Rome is relevant to the Romantic period not as the continuation of an earlier neoclassicism, but rather as a concept that is simultaneously transformed and transformative: transformed in the sense that new models of historical thinking produced a changed understandings of historicity itself and therefore a way to comprehend changes associated with modernity. The book positions Rome as central to a variety of literary events, including the British response to the French
Trade ReviewIt is a confident, authoritative examination of the uses to which Rome was put in Romanticism: how the legacy of the Roman republic was debated, manipulated, and fought over, and its relevance to concepts of nation and political ideology. * Felicity James and Eliza OBrien, Years Work in English Studies *
an impressive contribution * Matthew Hiscock, Journal of Roman Studies *
Table of ContentsPART I: POLITICAL WRITING AND THE NOVEL; PART II: POETRY; PART III: DRAMA
