A Concise Companion to the Romantic Age provides newperspectives on the relationships between literature and culture inBritain from 1780 to 1830 Provides original essays from a variety of multi-disciplinaryscholars on the Romantic era Includes fresh insights into such topics as religiouscontroversy and politics, empire and nationalism, and therelationship of Romanticism to modernist aesthetics Ranges across the Romantic era's literary, visual, andnon-fictional genres
Through a series of 34 essays by leading and emerging scholars, A Companion to Romantic Poetry reveals the rich diversity of Romantic poetry and shows why it continues to hold such a vital and indispensable place in the history of English literature. Breaking free from the boundaries of the traditionally-studied authors, the collection takes a revitalized approach to the field and brings together some of the most exciting work being done at the present time Emphasizes poetic form and technique rather than a biographical approach Features essays on production and distribution and the different schools and movements of Romantic Poetry Introduces contemporary contexts and perspectives, as well as the issues and debates that continue to drive scholarship in the field Presents the most comprehensive and compelling collection of essays on British Romantic poetry currently available
Based on the bestselling Oxford Companion to English Literature, this is an indispensable, compact guide to all aspects of English literature. For this revised edition, existing entries have been fully updated and 60 new entries have been added on contemporary writers, such as Peter Acroyd,Martin Amis, Toni Morrison, and Jeanette Winterson. Detailed new appendices include a chronology of English literature, and a listing of major literary prize-winners.
While poetry has been the genre most closely associated with the Romantic period, the novel of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries has attracted many more readers and students in recent years. Its canon has been widened to include less well known authors alongside Jane Austen, Walter Scott, Maria Edgeworth and Thomas Love Peacock. Over the last generation, especially, a remarkable range of popular works from the period have been re-discovered and reread intensively. This Companion offers an overview of British fiction written between roughly the mid-1760s and the early 1830s and is an ideal guide to the major authors, historical and cultural contexts, and later critical reception. The contributors to this volume represent the most up-to-date directions in scholarship, charting the ways in which the period's social, political and intellectual redefinitions created new fictional subjects, forms and audiences.
William Hazlitt is regarded as the finest prose stylist of the English Romantic period, by virtue of his work as an essayist, metaphysician, and a critic of literature and the fine arts. William Hazlitt: Political Essayist makes the case for including politics in this achievement.
A Cultural History of Shopping was a Library Journal Best in Reference selection for 2022. The 'consumer revolution' of the 18th century has been the subject of much debate among historians but it seems clear there was also a 'retail revolution': a period of unprecedented growth in material goods was accompanied by a proliferation of retail spaces and techniques which brought new fashions and imported commodities to the homes of consumers. Governments responded to a growing culture of polite and civilized behavior across society by stimulating urban renewal for leisure and shopping: new pavements, street lighting, green promenades, theatres, coffee houses, and adjacent shopping streets were laid-out everywhere in Europe. As the 18th century drew to its close, 'shopping' had become a publicly accepted and celebrated leisure pursuit, gaining its proper meaning in multiple languages. A Cultural History of Shopping in the Age of Enlightenment presents an overview of the period with themes addressing practices and processes; spaces and places; shoppers and identities; luxury and everyday; home and family; visual and literary representations; reputation, trust and credit; and governance, regulation and the state.
A Cultural History of Shopping was a Library Journal Best in Reference selection for 2022. Shopping emerged as a special pleasure and problem during the period between the revolutionary upheavals of the late 18th century and the opening salvoes of the Great War. New shops, new products, new class and gender ideologies, new standards of comfort and hygiene, and rising living standards for some meant that people, especially women, spent more time shopping and engaging in consumer-oriented activities beyond the walls of the shop. At the same time, social commentators, local and national authorities, economists, and many husbands became concerned about the 'dangers' of shopping, believing that the department store was emancipating women and destroying society in the process. This volume explores shopping in the 19th century as a varied and embedded social, political, economic, and cultural activity. It draws out the continuities with earlier periods as well as examining how the department store came to be seen as both symbol and generator of profound economic, social, and cultural change. A Cultural History of Shopping in the Age of Revolution and Empire presents an overview of the period with themes addressing practices and processes; spaces and places; shoppers and identities; luxury and everyday; home and family; visual and literary representations; reputation, trust and credit; and governance, regulation and the state.
