Historical Dictionary of Romanticism in Literature
By (author) Paul Varner
Publication date:
18 November 2014Length of book:
548 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersISBN-13: 9780810878853
The Historical Dictionary of Romanticism in Literature provides a large overview of the Romantic Movement that seemed at the time to have swept across Europe from Russia to Germany and France, to Britain, and across the Atlantic to the United States. The Romantics saw themselves as inaugurating a new era. They frequently referred to themselves or their contemporaries as Romantics and their art as Romantic. From the early stirrings in Germany, to the last decade of the eighteenth century in England with the political radicals and the Lake Poets, to the Transcendental Club in Massachusetts, the leaders of the age acknowledged their new Romantic attitudes.
This volume takes a close and comprehensive look at romanticism in literature through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 800 cross-referenced entries on the writers and the poems, novels, short stories and essays, plays, and other works they produced; the leading trends, techniques, journals, and literary circles and the spirit of the times are also covered. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more romanticism in literature.
This volume takes a close and comprehensive look at romanticism in literature through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 800 cross-referenced entries on the writers and the poems, novels, short stories and essays, plays, and other works they produced; the leading trends, techniques, journals, and literary circles and the spirit of the times are also covered. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more romanticism in literature.
Varner, author of several previous historical dictionaries focusing on American literary genres, takes a broad chronological view of and an international approach to his topic of Romanticism in literature. With an informative introduction, a detailed chronology, and an extensive bibliography, Varner whets readers' appetites for more detail. The British Romantics receive the most space, but Varner does not neglect German, American, French, Spanish, and Russian writers. His dictionary reflects a wider range of writers than the anthologies of 30 or 40 years ago. Women are well represented and given significant coverage as are some lesser-known Continental and British male writers, making this dictionary a source for discovery as well as reinforcement. Students would do well to have this volume at hand while studying, so it seems fitting that it should circulate rather than be confined to reference shelves. Ample cross-references mean that one can follow a satisfying and informative path through the book without regard for the alphabetical arrangement. In sum, this is an excellent introduction for novices and a handy reference for more experienced scholars. Summing Up: Recommended. Undergraduates through researchers/faculty; general readers.