Romanticism and Form

the long version

The study of form has enjoyed a considerable revival in Romantic Studies since the later 1990s, after being marginalised for the two previous decades by deconstruction and new historicism. Romanticism and Form brings together leading scholars of Romanticism and relative newcomers to offer a snapshot of what and where the revival of formalism in Romantic Studies is up to. The essays, all published here for the first time, offer new analyses of canonical texts by Wordsworth, Austen, Byron and P.B. Shelley, explorations of under-explored areas of Romantic-period culture, contextualisations of Romantic forms and formal practices in relation to war, nationalism, propaganda, empire and urbanisation, reassessments and rehabilitations of neglected and marginalised writers (including Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Felicia Hemans, John Clare, Ann Cristall, Charlotte Smith and Robert Southey), and new explorations of the relationship between form and reader. The volume showcases a range of new approaches to form that are distanced from New Criticism but informed by deconstruction, new historicism, feminism, theology and new technologies.