The Two Romanticisms and Other Essays: Mystery and Interpretation in Romantic Literature

The Romantic period is the most appealing but also the most confusing period of English literature for the student. Crucially, this book distinguishes between 'the Romantic' as modern critics use the term and 'the romantic' as it was used during the period itself. THE TWO ROMANTICISMS, AND OTHER ESSAYS is a collection of critical essays on Romanticism and select Romantic texts, designed to help teachers and students to make sense of the period as a whole and of the poems and novels that appear most frequently on school and university curricula. Each chapter offers a self-contained reading of a different canonical work while engaging with broader themes. Through close readings of Jane Austen, Lord Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley and William Wordsworth, William Christie explores the complexities of the Romantic period and offers fresh insights into pivotal Romantic texts. "Will Christie's The Two Romanticisms is the ideal companion for exploring Romanticism and romanticism in England." -- R. S. White (Author of John Keats: A Literary Life) "The combination of breadth of interest and intense attention to detail makes this book a fascinating excursion into territory which continues to intrigue and even baffle but also to stimulate and inspire." -- Graham Tulloch FAHA, Professor of English, Flinders University "It stands apart from other publications in the field in the depth and rigour of its scholarship, its welcome readability, and its relevance to contemporary university and senior secondary school curricula." -- Jacqueline Manuel, The University of Sydney