At the Limits of Romanticism

Romanticism has traditionally excluded or undervalued the work of popular women writers, narrative poetry, the novel, most of contemporary journalism, and the decorative arts. As a result, issues of the marketplace, class, and competing cultural discourses have been easier to ignore. The essays in this collection question romanticism's suppression of the feminine, the material, and the collective, and its opposition to readings centering on these concerns. In their inquiries, the contributors consider authors as diverse as Felicia Hemans, Ann Yearsley, Byron, William and Sarah Hazlitt, Walter Scott, Samuel Rogers, and Robert Southey. Here a number of influential critics--including Kurt Heinzelman, Sonia Hofkosh, Anne Janowitz, Marjorie Levinson, and Peter T. Murphy--map these previously neglected territories, articulating a series of surprising and refreshing arguments that redefine the borders of romanticism.