Romanticism and the Human Sciences: Poetry, Population, and the Discourse of the Species: 41 (Cambridge Studies in Romanticism, Series Number 41)
Cambridge University Press, 9/14/2000
EAN 9780521773485, ISBN10: 0521773482
Hardcover, 296 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm
Language: English
This study, published in 2000, examines the dialogue between Romantic poetry and the human sciences of the period. Maureen McLane reveals how Romantic writers participated in a new-found consciousness of human beings as a species, by analysing their work in relation to discourses on moral philosophy, political economy and anthropology. Writers such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Mary Shelley and Percy Shelley explored the possibilities and limits of human being, language and hope. They engaged with the work of theorisers of the human sciences - Malthus, Godwin and Burke among them. The book offers original readings of canonical works, including Lyrical Ballads, Frankenstein and Prometheus Unbound, to show how the Romantics internalised and transformed ideas about the imagination, perfectibility, immortality and population which so energised contemporary moral and political debates. McLane provides a defence of poetry in both Romantic and contemporary theoretical terms, reformulating the predicament of Romanticism in general and poetry in particular.
Acknowledgements
Introduction, or the thing at hand
1. Toward an anthropologic
poetry, literature, and the discourse of the species
2. Do rustics think? Wordworth, Coleridge, and the problem of a 'human diction'
3. Literate species
populations, 'humanities', and the specific failure of literature in Frankenstein
4. The 'arithmetic of futurity'
poetry, population, and the structure of the future
5. Dead poets and other romantic populations
immortality and its discontents
Epilogue, or Immortality interminable
the use of poetry for life
Notes
Bibliography
Index.
"Romanticism and the Human Sciences offers fresh perspectives on canonical texts and ultimately seeks to sketch a position that both recontextualizes romantic arguments and remains sensitive to how those arguments themselves test the boundaries of any merely contextual reading. In raising far-reaching questions with seriousness and candor, it does not shy away from the very real difficulties of its subject, and it makes a compelling case that the challenge posed by romanticism to today's readers--whether humanist, anti-humanist, or none of the above--remains as potent and problematic as ever." Deborah Elise White, Emory University, Studies in Romanticism
"a thought-provoking reflection on the value of Romantic literature... a valuable contribution to our understanding of the period. [McLane] demonstrates that the new ways of understanding human beings in society, the new modes of calculating human worth, envisioning human possibility, and quantifying human lives exerted a powerful influence on Romantic writing." Romanticism on the Net
"Intriguing....the overall quetion of the connection between literature and anthropology during the Romantic age proves to be very fertile ground for elaborate and detailed discussions of both literary and theoretical texts of that period." Variations
"Her [McLane's] readings of individual works are...frequently brilliant..." Albion
"A book of wide scope and intellectual ambition." RedNova News