Romanticism and Postmodernism

The persistence of Romantic thought and literary practice into the late twentieth century is evident in many contexts, from the philosophical and ideological abstractions of literary theory to the thematic and formal preoccupations of contemporary fiction and poetry. Though the precise meaning of the Romantic legacy is contested, it remains stubbornly difficult to move beyond. This collection of essays by prominent critics and literary theorists explores the continuing impact of Romanticism on a variety of authors and genres, including John Barth, William Gibson, and John Ashbery, while writers from the Romantic and Victorian period include Wordsworth, Byron and Emily Brontë. Many critics have assumed that the forms and modes of feeling associated with the Romantic period continued to exert a powerful influence on the cultural history of the the first half of the twentieth century. This is the first book to consider the mutual impact of postmodernism and Romanticism.

• First book to look at influence of Romanticism on contemporary literature and literary theory • Contains all-star cast • Wide range of contemporary and Romantic writers discussed

Introduction Edward Larrissy; 1. From sublimity to indeterminacy: new world order or aftermath of Romantic ideology Paul Hamilton; 2. Turnabouts in taste: the case of late Turner William Vaughan; 3. ‘Conquered good and conquering ill’: feminity, power and Romanticism in Emily Brontë’s poetry Emma Francis; 4. A sense of endings: some Romantic and postmodern comparisons J. Drummond Bone; 5. A being all alike? Teleotropic syntax in Ashbery and Wordsworth Geoff Ward; 6. Virtual Romanticism Fred Botting; 7. The sins of the fathers: the persistence of Gothic John Fletcher; 8. Romantic irony and the postmodern sublime: Geoffrey Hill and ‘Sebastian Arruruz’ Andrew Michael Roberts; 9. ‘Uprooting the Rancid Stalk’: transformations of Romanticism in Ashbery and Ash Stephen Clark; 10. Postmodernism/Fin de Siecle Marjorie Perloff.