Browse Hierarchy ESH7066: International Romanticism

The artistic energies and intellectual currents of the Romantic movement crossed national boundaries and reflected the political and social upheavals of an increasingly globalised world in an age of revolution. This module examines key works of British and European Romanticism and investigates the cultural mechanisms through which Romantic ideas and literary practices were transmitted from one country to another. Diverse strands in British 'Four Nations' Romanticism, including work by Coleridge, Byron, Edgeworth and Carlyle, are analysed alongside Continental texts in translation including Rousseau's Confessions, Goethe¿s Faust, Staël¿s Corinne, and Leopardi¿s Zibaldone. Themes to be explored include the pan-European Ossian phenomenon, the reception of Kant¿s Critical philosophy, the role of literary periodicals, and the `natural supernaturalism¿ of the American Transcendentalists.