Romantic Literature

Brief, manageable and affordable, the books in the ‘Contexts’ series
fill the gap in students’ knowledge of the historical facts, literary
associations and wider cultural climate of the main literary periods.
As well as offering a background in relevant social history, these texts
include selected extracts from original documents to give a full
flavour of the period in question.

The Romantic period
was a turbulent time in which England changes from a primarily
agricultural society to a modern industrial nation. The French
Revolution, economic cycles of inflation and depression, and an enlarged
and increasingly restless working class, created circumstances for
profound social and political change. Looking at poetry and fiction
against the ‘spirit of the age’, this book discusses issues of science
and art, psychology and the supernatural, revolutionary politics and
social vision, satire and morality, and at the same time provides an
introduction to the work of Austen, Blake, Burns, Byron, Keats,
Radcliffe, Shelley, Charlotte Smith, Mary Wollstonecraft, and William
Wordsworth.