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Romanticism at the End of Historicism

Romanticism at the End of Historicism (Spring 2010)

Convened by Matthew Ocheltree.

This year’s seminar on Recent Publications in Romanticism will follow the format of last year’s program. A group of core readings are specified along with a set of more peripheral optional readings. In general, the core readings have a more theoretical or methodological bent while the supplementary readings often focus on the application of a given approach to specific authors; this is not always the case, however, and the Hamilton selection is a case in point. It is recommended that everyone attempt to cover as much of the core reading as possible and then choose from the remaining chapters whatever case studies or additional topics interest them. The supplementary readings treat a range of authors including: Scott, Keats, Schiller, Wordsworth, Austen, Edgeworth, and Hamilton, among others. Core readings total approximately 250 pages.

1. Jerome Christensen, Romanticism at the End of History (Johns Hopkins, 2000)

  • Core Readings (~50 pages): Introduction (pp. 1-8); Chapter 1: “The Romantic Movement at the End of History” (pp. 9-42)
  • Supplementary Readings: Chapter 2: “The Color of Imagination and the Office of Romantic Criticism” (pp. 43-76); Chapter 6: “Clerical Liberalism: Walter Scott’s World Picture” (pp. 153-76)

2. Paul Hamilton, Metaromanticism: Aesthetics, Literature, Theory(Chicago, 2003)

  • Core Readings (~75 pages): Introduction: “Metaromanticism” (pp. 1-24); Chapter 4: “Keats and Critique” (pp. 88-114); Chapter 5: “Waverley: Scott’s Romantic Narrative and Revolutionary Historiography” (pp. 115-38)
  • Supplementary Readings: Chapter 1: “Schiller’s Temporizing” (pp. 25-43); Chapter 9: “The Romanticism of Contemporary Ideology” (pp. 193-209); Chapter 11: “Sublimity to Indeterminacy: Dreams of a New World Order” (pp. 231-48)

3. Alan Liu, Local Transcendence: Essays on Postmodern Historicism and the Database (Chicago, 2008)

  • Core Readings (~80 pages): Introduction: “Contingent Methods” (pp. 1-28); Chapter 1: “The Power of Formalism: The New Historicism” (pp. 29-70); Chapter 5: “The New Historicism and the Work of Mourning” (pp. 157-66)
  • Supplementary Readings: Chapter 3: “Local Transcendence: Cultural Criticism, Postmodernism and the Romanticism of Detail” (pp. 109-38)

4. Damian Walford Davies (ed.), Romanticism, History and Historicism: Essays on an Orthodoxy (Routledge, 2009)

  • Core Readings (~40 pages): Introduction: “Reflections on an Orthodoxy” (pp. 1-13)
    • Tim Milnes, Chapter 1: “The Incommensurable Value of Historicism” (pp. 14-31)
    • Erik Gray, Chapter 2: “The Hair of Milton: Historicism and Literary History” (pp. 32-42)
  • Supplementary Readings
    • Alan Liu, Preface: “A Poem Should Be Equal To: / Not True”
    • Anne Mellor and Susan Wolfson, Chapter 8: “Romanticism, Feminism, History, Historicism: A Conversation” (pp. 143-62)
    • Robert Miles, Chapter 10: “New Historicism, New Austen, New Romanticism” (pp. 182-202) 

5. Heather Glen and Paul Hamilton (eds.), Repossessing the Romantic Past (Cambridge, 2006) [festschrift for Marilyn Butler]

  • Core Readings [none]
  • Supplementary Readings
    • James Chandler, Chapter 6: “Edgeworth and Scott: The Literature of Reterritorialization” (pp. 119-39)
    • Nigel Leask, Chapter 9: “Elizabeth Hamilton’s Translation of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah and Romantic orientalism” (pp. 183-202)