Romanticism Books

Mr. Ruoff, the editor of these essays, states that his goal is to demonstrate that the Romantics, in particular Wordsworth (it turns out in most of the essays) still influence "modern" poetry in ways in which even those who disavow their influence are unaware of.-Some of these essays are downright bad. You just can't reconcile the sublimity of Wordsworth with the current mush by quoting, over and over again, his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads that poetry should consist of the speech of the common man...Yes, but it still has to be poetry!...But let's not dwell on these (in my opinion) futile endeavors to reconcile Wordsworth with modern poetry...There are two excellent essays here: one by Louis Simpson, the other by Robert Pinsky. The Simpson essay draws the felicitous (and well-documented) connection between Wordsworth and Proust while Pinsky's is a masterful piece on how the Romantics shaped our view of the spiritual life of a modern city. Simpson simply states the obvious to anyone with poetic and spiritual sensibilities, that great literature is about transcendent experiences that, well, intimate immortality. Simpson explains how Proust's fascination with Ruskin brought him in contact with Wordsworth. And to Simpson belongs my favorite sentence in the entire book: "It is for want of contact with the infinity Proust speaks of that the theory of literature is, at the present time, in such a dreary state."...Good Show Louis!...Pinsky's essay is easily the best of the lot, seemingly effortlessly demonstrating, in fifteen short pages, by quoting at length from Blake, Wordsworth, Baudelaire, and Hart Crane how the Romantics have more or less, consciously or not, established in our minds what the modern city is, spiritually and physically.-This book gets four stars for these two essays and a couple bright spots in some of the others. Sadly, though, I think it mostly a failure. Modern literature is a far cry from the Romantics. I don't think they would even recognize it as literature. The bridge the book attempts to build is an admirable attempt. But collapses in its very inception. It is, indeed, a bridge too far.

Rousseau is arguably one of the most influential thinkers of all time. 'The French Revolution' has the name Rousseau written all over it. Babbit reads Rousseau in relation to a number of central themes, : the Classic and Romantic, Romantic genius, Romantic imagination, Romantic morality: the ideal, Romantic love, Romantic irony, Romanticisim and nature, Romantic melancholy. He in effect reads the history of Western Mankind from the eighteenth century onward as extension of and parse on Rousseauian thought. Here his goal is not celebratory but more wary of the excesses engendered by this movement. In the course of this however he provides insight into a whole range of thinkers.

Greece as inspiration, theme, and source of poetics is often associated with Keatsian aesthetics or Byronian politics, and not as much with the works of Shelley. Jennifer Wallace, in her book Shelley and Greece: Rethinking Romantic Hellenism, posits that Keats's intense, image-dense poetry deals mostly with non-textual texts; with Hellenic symbols and artifacts, and emotions and psychological states that interpret Greece as a site of aestheticized, though primeval abandon. This almost archetypal approach to Greek culture, Wallace rightly suggests, is due to Keats being unfamiliar with the Greek language, and therefore limited to reading the classics in translation. As a consequence, his readings of Greek works were shaped into interpretations-whether it be in translation of texts, or of objects (such as the Grecian Urn). Byron, on the other hand, is closely associated with Greece and its struggle against the Ottoman Empire through his life, politics, poetry, and finally death. However, as Wallace points out, he refused to read Greek in the original (though he was perfectly able to), in what perhaps was the remnants of rebellion against an educational authority which required mechanical translation, not understanding, of Greek classics. His Greece is an ideological landscape to be expressed in poetry, and which inspired a rejuvenating ideology which could be incorporated into modern politics. Shelley, Wallace asserts, was more widely read in Greek literature in the original than were both of his contemporaries. As opposed to both Keats and Byron, he read all the Greek literature he could get hold of, and did so, to use a Keatsian term, with gusto. As a consequence, his Hellenistic influences tend to be concerned with the actual texts of Greek culture, rather than being limited to a contemporary interpretation of the culture as a whole. However, he certainly engages in the latter as well, though with a more textual base than his fellow younger Romantics. Wallace brings attention to how Shelley's take on Greece reinterprets the traditional discourse of Classical influence on the literature and ideology of Romanticism. Greece and the idea of Greece, and the interpretation thereof is a double-edged sword - it can be either an autocratic Classicist rubric which enforces dominant ideology, or be read as an example of embryonic democracy, and later emblematic of a struggle against oppressive powers. The first chapter, titled "'Things Foreign'?: Classical Education and Knowledge" outlines educational practices during the late 18th and 19th centuries, which yet again emphasizes how Classical learning had a place in an educational system which aimed to educate leaders and at best train the masses for whatever trade they were destined. Knowledge of the Classics, used as a grammar primer for both Latin and English, was an integral part of the education of the upper classes. An example of the social significance of the "right" education (which is mentioned by Wallace only in passing, p. 90-91) is the vitriolic attack on Keats's Endymion by Blackwood's Magazine. Keats, states the critic "Z" contemptuously, "knows Homer only from Chapman [in translation]", as "might be expected from persons of [his] education," while "Mr. Shelly [sic], whatever his errors may have been, is a scholar, a gentleman, and a poet." [italics mine] Further, Wallace continues to describe how Greek develops from a relatively obscure subject studied only by learned scholars, to Thomas Arnold's introduction of Greek as a moral as well as a scholarly model of education. As the British empire gradually increases its dominion in foreign countries, ancient Greece and its culture is increasingly glorified as a sort of pristine, fetal Britain in the making. Wallace uses Shelley's Alastor as an example of the dichotomy of Classical tradition and Classical, radical politics where the Other side of the Poet, embodied in several female personas, enable the poet to pursue his dream, and the elusive female aspects of his own self (p. 46f). The Poet's journey constructs his mission as it simultaneously deconstructs the male poetical discourse manifested by Classical poetics, and manages to eroticise the search for knowledge (p. 47ff). Chapter two explores the remarkable elasticity of interpretation offered by the Greek political concept. Conservatives could safely read Greece as a model of uninterrupted tradition, carried on and distilled by the British political and educational systems, while radicals could pick up on the history of philosophy, and the oppression by Romans and Turks. The second interpretation was particularly attractive to radicals as it offered an early, democratic model as well as a more Keatsian, mystical landscape of extra-conventional pain and pleasure. Wallace, however, feels that because Shelley's career peaked (in this reviewer's opinion a rather anti-climactic peak) during the years following the Napoleonic wars, his radical politics are often overemphasized, an assertion I personally will accept only with reservations. Chapter 3 deals with the distinctly Greek genre of pastoral poetry, and how it in its Romantic form is subverted from an innocent, rural idyll to a site of forbidden pleasure, paganism, and sexuality (p. 89). Shelley, unlike many other Romantics, does not give himself up totally to the seductive qualities of Greek pastoral, asserts Wallace. (p. 96 passim). Though he is willing to view Greece (and in extension Italy where he lives) as seductive, he is at the same time aware of the lure of these southern wiles, and not willing to give in to the same intoxicating "sensual forgetfulness" (p. 98) that tempts Keats. Wallace later touches on Adonais (p. 110ff), in which Shelley's description of the dead Keats strays into what can almost be described as both envy and abhorrence of someone who has passed into a dreamy landscape of poetic liberation with erotic overtones. Wallace pinpoints an important issue that has come to present Keats in a distorted way to posterity; Shelley's appropriation of the death of Keats as a venue for expression of his own anxieties as a poet, and reversion of it into an attempt to transcend death poetically and spiritually. The chapter also deals with Shelley's poetical interpretations ("Hymn to Venus) of Greek works, which manifest his attitudes to marriage and other institutions imposed on the individual by society, and his utilizing of the Greek heritage in a manner that seems to underwrite this position (p. 103ff). The chapter `Grecian Grandeur' locates Shelley within the Romantic Hellenism that suffered from an inferiority complex towards the grandeur and magnificent of an inimitable past (p. 148ff). Again, Shelley is caught in the bind between authoritative Classicism (and authority is as usual a problem for Shelley), and his admiration of Classical culture. The British desire to situate a Greek heritage within British contemporary culture becomes problematic as it presents an attractive conservative model of permanence, which counteracts the more Hellenic aspects of dissenting politics, subversive sensualism, and sublime grandeur. The chapter `We are all Greeks' examines the Greek war of independence as a testing ground for liberal ideals, and intellectuals all over Europe took a great interest in its progression. Byron, famously, to the extent that he actually died fighting for the cause of the Greeks. Shelley's attitudes towards the East are as usual mixed, and perhaps his reluctance to deal with the disparate pictures of the awesome ancient Greece and the disturbing orientalism of contemporary Greece (a problem he has with contemporary Italy as well) lies in Wallace's early observation about Shelley's Hellenism originating with Greek literary texts rather than other cultural signs. He is unable to detach himself completely from his mainstream, culturally dominant, British education, and deal with an Eastern Europe that does not conform to the marble-white standards incorporated in British intellectual culture. It is always disappointing to read Shelley's comments on garlic-reeking Italian women, and other biased statements one might wish had not been recorded. It clashes with our views of Shelley as an idealistic realist, radical ideologist, and Romantic writer. Though this certainly needs to be acknowledged, we do Shelley an injustice by subjecting him to the same naïve idealism that he was unable to refrain from when approaching the practical aspects of things "un-British." Wallace sums up her insightful book by stating that though Shelley's uneasy relationship to Greek culture has contributed to early post-Victorian interpretations of Shelleyan poetics as a crystallizing of Classical ideals of beauty. This, however, Wallace argues convincingly, is really the backlash of a very human anxiety of the Other, and misses the point of Shelley's real Hellenism, which in spite of its imperfections represents the tensions between the imaginative inspiration of anOther culture, and the unsettling reality of it.

Robinson mixes and matches lines from Romantic poets with other Romantics, 20th century poets, and even his own. This technique not only results in new ways of looking at Romantic poets, but also some very good poetry. The new poetry is so good you may not even be interested in turning back to the key to learn who is being "spliced." This is the sort of work that other scholars may look down their noses at, but the public will cherish.

If you are a fan of 19th Century novels, e.g. Austen, Bronte, Edgeworth et.al. you will especially enjoy the chapter, "Sketching, courtship and women's novels." A readable exposition of a specialized topic.

It included the top dialogues of Plato, but did not include his cosmology (the timeus).

In my class at college, we had to read this book. The imagery and fairy tale qualities imply that under other circumstances I would enjoy reading this story. However, the book is hardly a masterpiece of literature, the pacing is impossible, the writing apart from the poetry is tedious and dull. the story winds an runs on and on and though the concepts are quite thought provoking when discussed with others who actually understand and follow this dribble, when reading it, it zaps the mind of any thought.

Coming to this book I only knew Novalis as a master of poetry, not as a novelist. And now I know why. The novel centers on Henry, a budding scholar and would-be poet who has had a vision. In this vision he sees a blue flower, and in its shape, the image of an unknown woman and he feels he must discover her identity. As he travels to Augsburg in the company of some merchants and his mother, he encounters many interesting personalities before he comes face to face with his dream. This book suffers mostly because of the eighteenth century tradition of digression. For instance, in one scene where Henry meets with an older poet and asks him to tell him a fairy tale, the tale itself eats up 20 pages of this novel. The tales that surround the main novel are thin, transparent, and lifeless. And what is left of the book is either taken up by philosophical or merely descriptive prose. While I highly recommend reading the authors "Hymns to the Night" this book is boring at best and awful at worst.

This is one of my favorite Romantic novels. It is filled with amazing imagery, fairy tales and myths mutated into new forms, and a powerful dialectic. Sadly, the novel was never finished by Novalis, but it is definitely worth the read anyway. Much of this book is based on Novalis' (Friedrich von Hardenberg) own life. If you would like to read another great novel that deals with Novalis' life, look at Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower.

Concerning the actual product, this copy is a good buy. I found the paperback's cover to be quite durable, which means that it may hold itself together over the years to come. Furthermore, not only is it one of the rare English translations that may be found on Amazon, but it is a truly fine translation as a whole. The writings of Novalis, along with other key German romantics, are very lucid and the translator has kept this style quite well. Concerning the story itself, it is complex; and despite the book's short length, the reader may find some difficulty if he or she tries rush through it. However, if the reader should give this text some time, he or she may discover why Novalis was such a key figure within the German romantic movement and how this text, in particular, may reveal a new and radical perception of thought.

I had been looking for this book for awhile and I finally found it here. It is full of amazing imagery. This copy is in English in case the discription is unclear.

this is a smaller version of a bigger set.. these are nice sort of like excerpts from a larger text.. if you're only studying a small section of history and don't need to ever compare before or after they are ok..but you're better off getting the vol. I or II or both depending on what your needs are. most profs are going to want you to compare and contrast what came before and after ... these books have great pics..but get the larger versions.. as these are a lot of little books, and depending on your class you may need to carry 6 little books with you instead of 1 text..

I wasn't expecting to recieve a new book but I am glad I did and didn't go to the expensive bookstore across the street

I highly recommend this series of six books. When I was in college, I bought one of the books because it looked so interesting even though I wasn't taking the course. In the past year, I've ordered the other books in the series. The books are very interesting and informative, with many color pictures of the art and architecture discussed. The books also discuss literature, philosophy, and the history of science. The graphic layout of the books is excellent and there are many reading selections of literature and philosophy. Even though the series concentrates on western humanities, there are also excellent sections on Asian, African, Islamic, and Native American arts.

After using this book (as well as books 2 and 3) as texts for a class, I must say that I found all of them to be overrated and a poor choice of reference. The volumes contain nice photographs but are ineffective as textbooks. For example, as material is introduced a sudden segue to a new subject leaves the reader cold. I would not recommend any of this series to those who need detail. These books support a teaching methodology that relies upon mundane memorization of incidental information rather than comprehensive study.

"The wisdom of the Egyptians was a proverb with the Greeks, who felt themselves children beside this ancient race." Plato, Timaeus, 22B, (Quoted from Will Durant, the Story of civilization:I)



Early Civilizations:
As summarized by Will Durant, the development of agriculture helped people to settle in villages and create communities, where the early civilizations gradually developed. Ancient people developed their specialized trades, arts, and crafts, establishing an economy based on trade, which led to the first civilizations. Since there were but few written records, as in the case of ancient Egypt, archaeologists have patiently recreated the history of the first civilizations by putting together artifacts and studying ruins which have been discovered over time. A cardinal characteristic of civilizations was that each had a leader, ruler, priests, and civil administrators. It has been discovered also that early civilizations were tinted by a class system of rich and poor people. First great civilizations were built around rivers, which were crucial to their development, and became a catalyst for the growth of agricultural civilization.

The Humanistic Tradition:
This colorful work is a thoughtful, methodical topical approach to the first classical civilizations that helps not only humanity students but all seekers of common global experience understand humanity's creative traditions as a continuum in space and time, rather than isolated events by human races or nations. This compelling acclaimed survey offers a global perspective, through a gifted editor of many vivid illustrations, integrating an amazing ocean of literary sources. It explores the sociopolitical, economic, and artistic contexts of human culture, providing an analytical perspective of the global multicultural quest which humanity pursued. Gloria Fiero's popular work offers the reader an opportunity to be introduced to 'The Humanistic Tradition' clearly demonstrating the close relationship between the culture of the past and sophisticated life and rich culture of the present. The book explores the arts and thought of the West in relation to ideas of other world cultures, from the ancient mid-East to the modern far East.

Ancient World's Light:
The above being said, I would like to caution the reader that the colorful author, and creative editor adopts a rather questionably biased theory, lately in great doubt (Ps. see: Barnel's Black Athena,) that Greek philosophy is the foundation of the Humanistic tradition, at least/ even in the West. Late Medieval Alexandria, Egypt was no doubt, the "Mind of Western Tradition". Eugene Holley Jr. expressed it beautifully, "Historians of philosophy have been wont to begin their story with the Greeks. It may be that we are all mistaken; for among the most ancient fragments left to us by the Egyptians are writings that belong under the rubric of moral philosophy. The Egyptians were the light of the ancient world. They produced many early medical instruments, designed the world's first step pyramid, and laid the empirical groundwork for scientific reasoning. Akhenaton, the rebel pharaoh, is cited as "the Father of Monotheism." Asante stresses throughout the book that these developments came from a confluence of African cultures, and not from other parts of the world. "The practice of the African philosophers along the Nile was a practice of maintaining Maat [the principle of truth, order, and justice] in every aspect of life," he writes. "If we could only learn from them the value of harmony, balance, and righteousness, we would be on our way toward a revival of the spirit of human victory."

Sonia's fine Review:
"The Humanistic Tradition is quite simply the finest book of its type. Fiero manages to integrate the political, cultural, and social history of the world into one coherent and fascinating whole. It is a masterpiece of scholarship... balanced, interesting, easy to read, and consummately beautiful." -- Sonia Sorrell, Pepperdine University

Overall, this brief biography offers an interesting portrait of a commanding political figure of the Victorian era. In order to fully appreciate Smith's rendition, however, one should become acquainted with (if not actually reading) Disraeli's novels, as his writing seems to be Smith's point of departure, and frequent point of reference in telling the story of Disraeli's life. I, for one, was less interested in linking the biographical themes in Disraeli's novels to his life's events, and more interested in capturing the essence of the epoch, with more detail and attention paid to the political developments of Disraeli's age.

This is written for a british school person taking his or her O and or A levels. It is an enjoyeable read which put Disraeli in a comptempary historical view point. Yes, the Author actually compares Disraeli and his government to the tories of the 80's under the iron rule of Thatcher.

Paul Smith attempts the impossible - to write a brief life - of the complex, remarkable and enigmatic Jewish politician and author Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Smith almost pulls it off but another 50 or so pages would have given him much more scope to portray Disraeli's major contributions to the politics of identity, social and political reform and the recognition of the inevitability of working class emancipation. Smith allows his fascination with Dizzy's Jewishness and "outsider" status to overwhelm the other facets of his character and beliefs. Part of Dizzy's greatness as a politician was the ability to simultaneously portray himself as the ultimate outsider and the loyal, patriotic "insider." Until the election of Ramsey MacDonald as the first Labour Prime Minister in the 1920s, Disraeli stands alone as the most unlikely Prime Minister Britain ever had. Smith's book includes some good quotes from commentators such as Gladstone and Michael Foot. A book deserving a fuller treatment in its second edition but still a very useful introduction to its subject for young students of 19th century history.

This book is interesting from a historical perspective but that is really all. What Lady Caroline Lamb needed was a damn good editor as Glenarvon is a long and turgid read. I doubt there would be any interest in this book now were it not for the fact that she wrote it as a roman a clef - a book with thinly disguised portraits of many of Regency London's celebrities - and of course primarily about her relationship with the great poet Byron.

Did I say her relationship? Well not quite. This is a highly Gothic rendition of their relationship. There was no attempt to present it as anything but fiction - but those in know tried to pick out the facts from the overlay of fictional story-telling. For instance a letter she used verbatim in here is said to have been written to her by Byron.

This edition has a marvellous introduction which puts the novel in context with the times and Lamb's life and helps us as readers understand the links between real life and fiction. But this is an uneasy novel, poorly paced, with a tendency to maudlin pathos and overwrought chest-beating. It is interspersed with sections of intentional humour - Lamb clearly had great talent - but much of it was for the over-dramatic. Its a pity she wasn't taken in hand by her editor then as there are the makings of a very good novel in amongst the pages of dross. Overall the the novel is very Gothic and really only of interest to those who have an interest in Byron or Lamb herself. Byron, is of course Glenarvon the anti-hero of the novel and Lady Caroline the poor victimised Calantha.

In short the novel is all about poor old Calantha who marries one man, but is seduced by another (Glenarvon) who also masquerades under another evil persona. Their are ruined castles galore, quivering breasts, breathless terror - and the Irish rebellion of the late 1790's makes a bit of showing as well.

Lamb wrote two more novels after this neither of which have been reprinted - they were both, it seems overwritten as well, but without the added advantage of dozens of personality portraits of real people to ensure the successful marketing of the book. . Glenarvon was written, Lamb claims, as an apology to Byron, but marked the end of her acceptability amongst the elite of London society. She had overstepped the limit of social acceptibility once too often.

One of the oddest things about all this is that although we know Lamb as the lover of Byron, the affair was of the briefest - hardly lasting more than four months in the summer of 1812. She became completely obsessed with him after that and he had no peace from her. He eventually left London just before this book was published and died overseas fighting for the Greek cause in 1824. Lamb died 4 years later in 1828. I wonder if we should have known much of her at all were it not for those brief three months?

Lady Caroline Lamb supposedly sat in a room and dictated this book to a gentleman who put it to paper, and he was horrified that such a story could come from feminine lips! It was an attempt to revenge herself on Byron after he was bored with their affair, and many figures in popular society recognized themselves satirized in its pages. This is certainly the best edition of GLENARVON I have come across, and the introduction is keen and informative as well. I highly recommend this text to anyone interested in Romantic, Gothic, or early 19th Century fiction.

As most people know, Glenarvon tells the story of Lamb's real life love affair with Lord Byron, an experience which deeply touched her and affected the rest of her life.

However, the book is much more than a tawdry kiss-and-tell expose, as Lamb shows that she appreciates Romantic sensibilities as much as her erstwhile lover. Some people have described the book as unreadable, and at the time it was first published it was dismissed as little more than scandalous revelation; although it can be confusing at times, and is not a straightforward retelling of the affair, it is well worth persevering with.

The book strays into the realms of fantasy, and if you are reading it purely as historical research it can be difficult to extricate who's who, as sometimes one real-life character resembles two characters in the book, or vice versa. The lead parts are, however, fairly obvious. Calantha is Lamb herself, Lord Avondale is her husband William Lamb, and Glenarvon her lover Byron.

As the story continues the plot becomes more and more tangled, and although it often strays beyond the realms of reality, it is interesting when compared with other fictitious representations of Byron, particularly that of Polidori's "Vampyre"

The novel reveals much more about Lamb than it does about Byron, and in my opinion serves to redeem her from the position of deranged groupie that history has assigned her. It reveals interesting details about her early life, perhaps not always taken into consideration when examining here character. Moreover this book shows her to be intelligent, as it is far from an hysterical romance.

I would definitely recommend the book to those with an interest in the Romantics, and most particularly an interest in Byron.