Romantic Metropolis
The Urban Scene of British Culture, 1780–1840

Some of the most exciting critics of Romanticism do long-overdue justice to the place of the city in this 2005 text.

James Chandler (Edited by), Kevin Gilmartin (Edited by)

9780521181273, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 17 February 2011

306 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.45 kg

Review of the hardback: 'Romantic Metropolis as a whole compels us to re-examine the way our own conception of Romanticism has been invented by excluding everything but what Hazlitt and other 'major' Romantics upheld to forger the image of the 'serious' and solitary Romantic artist. This collection of enlightening essays constitutes a valuable and vitalising contribution to ever-expanding Romantic scholarship.' Studies in English Literature

This 2005 collection of essays challenges the traditional conception that British Romanticism was rooted in nature and rural life, by showing that much of what was new about Romanticism was born in the city. The essays examine the works and events of the Romantic period from the point of view of the urban world, where rapid developments in population, industry, communication, trade, and technology set the stage and the tone for many of the great achievements in literature and culture. The great metropolis appears as both fact and figure: London is its paradigm, but the metropolitan perspective is also borrowed and projected elsewhere. In this volume, some of the most exciting critics of Romanticism explore diverse cultural productions from poems and paintings, to exhibition sites, panoramas, and political organizations to do long-overdue justice to the place of the city - both as topic and as location - in British Romanticism.

Introduction: engaging the eidometropolis James Chandler and Kevin Gilmartin
Part I. Metropolis, Nation, and Empire: 1. Edinburgh, capital of the nineteenth century Ian Duncan
2. Discriminations, or Romantic cosmopolitanisms in London Jon Klancher
Part II. Urban Radicalism and Reform: 3. London and the London Corresponding Society John Barrell
4. Blake's metropolitan radicalism Saree Makdisi
5. Envy rising Frances Ferguson
Part III. Metropolitan Spectacle: 6. Urbanity and the spectacle of art Ann Bermingham
7. Mystagogues of revolution: Cagliostro, de Loutherbourg and Romantic London Iain McCalman
8. 'The Temple lives': the Lyceum and Romantic show business Simon During
Part IV. The New Poetics of Urban Publicity: 9. Manufacturing the Romantic image: Hazlitt and Coleridge lecturing Peter Manning
10. The artifactual sublime: making London poetry Anne Janowitz
11. Venice Celeste Langan.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]