Reading public romanticism /

Reading Public Romanticism is a significant new example of the linking of esthetics and historical criticism. Here Paul Magnuson locates Romantic poetry within a public discourse that combines politics and esthetics, nationalism and domesticity, sexuality and morality, law and legitimacy. Building o...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Magnuson, Paul
Corporate Authors: De Gruyter.
Published: Princeton University Press,
Publisher Address: Princeton, N.J. :
Publication Dates: [1998]
©1998
Literature type: eBook
Language: English
Subjects:
Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9781400864799
http://www.degruyter.com/doc/cover/9781400864799.jpg
Summary: Reading Public Romanticism is a significant new example of the linking of esthetics and historical criticism. Here Paul Magnuson locates Romantic poetry within a public discourse that combines politics and esthetics, nationalism and domesticity, sexuality and morality, law and legitimacy. Building on his well-regarded previous work, Magnuson practices a methodology of close historical reading by identifying precise versions of poems, reading their rhetoric of allusion and quotation in the contexts of their original publication, and describing their public genres, such as the letter. He studies the author's public signature or motto, the forms and significance of address used in poems, and the resonances of poetic language and tropes in the public debates.According to Magnuson, "reading locations" means reading the writing that surrounds a poem, the "paratext" or "frame" of the esthetic boundary. In their particular locations in the public discourse, romantic poems are illocutionary speech acts that take a stand on public issues and legitimate their authors both as public characters and as writers. He traces the public significance of canonical poems commonly considered as lyrics with little explicit social or political commentary, including Wordsworth's "Immortality Ode"; Coleridge's "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison," "Frost at Midnight," and "The Ancient Mariner"; and Keats's "On a Grecian Urn." He also positions Byron's Dedication to Don Juan in the debates over Southey's laureateship and claims for poetic authority and legitimacy. Reading Public Romanticism is a thoughtful and revealing work.Originally published in 1998.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Le
Carrier Form: 1 online resource(264pages) : illustrations
ISBN: 9781400864799
Index Number: PR590
CLC: I561.072
Contents: Frontmatter --
CONTENTS --
Acknowledgments --
Abbreviations and Key Words --
INTRODUCTION --
CHAPTER One. The Corresponding Society: The Public Discourse --
CHAPTER Two. The Corresponding Society: Reading the Correspondence --
CHAPTER Three. The Politics of "Frost at Midnight" --
CHAPTER Four. The Mariner's Extravagance and the Tempests of Lyrical Ballads --
CHAPTER Five. The Dedication of Don Juan --
CHAPTER Six. Keats's "Leaf-Fringed Legend" --
Index.