In this book, I present and discuss a dialectical rethinking of the concept of Romanticism. The viewpoint on the concept has undergone a significant transformation since Jerome McGann first challenged the traditional definition of Romanticism. This perspective expands the framework of the concept by generating a forum for further study on the literary canon of Romanticism. Instead of defining the concept solely on the similarities of the romantic writers, this book aims to step beyond theoretical limitations and provide an approach to the study of cultural theory which creates a continuous and evergrowing synthesis of thought.

Perspectives: Romantic, Victorian, and Modern Literature is an up-to-date explication of various popular and classic subjects and authors arranged chronologically. The book, composed of thirteen essays, examines Blake; Coleridge; Byron; Shelley; Keats; Victorian medievalism; the Victorian reaction to British India; (Ben) Jonsonian elements in Yeats; Yeats and Maud Gonne; the treatment of the Irish civil war and Irish nationalism in Yeats; and the treatment of the Spanish civil war in the selected works of modern fiction and nonfiction. Marked by an originality of approach and a freshness and simplicity, the book takes note of contemporary theoretical, interdisciplinary and cultural discourse drawn from literature, history, politics and religion as necessary. However, it is far from being unnecessarily outweighed by the loaded clichés, oft-repeated jargon and overused euphemisms of modern literary or critical theory. The result is, regardless of its specialized treatment of otherwise commonplace or well-known texts or topics, that the overall discussion is as lucid, introductory and expository as it is deep and scholarly, making the book easily accessible and understandable to non-specialist readers, in addition to specialist researchers and academics.

In this book, I present and discuss a dialectical rethinking of the concept of Romanticism. The viewpoint on the concept has undergone a significant transformation since Jerome McGann first challenged the traditional definition of Romanticism. This perspective expands the framework of the concept by generating a forum for further study on the literary canon of Romanticism. Instead of defining the concept solely on the similarities of the romantic writers, this book aims to step beyond theoretical limitations and provide an approach to the study of cultural theory which creates a continuous and evergrowing synthesis of thought.

What, and when, is British Romanticism, if seen not in island isolation but cosmopolitan integration with European Romantic literature, history and culture? The essays here range from poetry and the novel to science writing, philosophy, visual art, opera and melodrama; from France and Germany to Italy and Bosnia.