European Romanticism: A Reader - Softcover

This is an awe-inspiring volume. Not only because it is a real wrist-breaker of an anthology, but also because the concept behind it is truly ambitious... a collection of texts that is unique in scope and original in design...There is nothing comparable. Every library should have a copy, and every lover of Romanticism should have access to this anthology. * Review 19 * Only the most polymathic of readers will fail to find something here to surprise, enlighten and occasionally, entertain... this ought to mark a watershed in Anglophone perceptions of European Romanticism. * Times Literary Supplement *

Romanticism was always culturally diverse. Though English-language anthologies have previously tended to see Romanticism as predominantly British, the term itself actually originated in Germany, where it became the banner of a Europe-wide movement involving the profound intellectual and aesthetic changes which we now associate with modernity. This anthology is the first to place British Romanticism within a comprehensive and multi-lingual European context, showing how ideas and writers interconnected across national and linguistic boundaries. By reprinting everything in the original languages, together with an English translation of all non-English material in parallel on the opposite page, it offers a new intellectual map of Romanticism. Material is thematically arranged as follows: - Art & Aesthetics - The Self - History - Language - Hermeneutics & Theology - Nature - The Exotic - Science While focusing on European texts, the inclusion of essays on their North American and Japanese reception means that Romanticism can be seen as a global phenomenon, influencing a surprising number of the ways in which the modern world sees itself.