Reading, Writing, and Romanticism by Lucy Newlyn
Reading, Writing, and Romanticism bridges a perceived gulf between materialist and idealist approaches to the reader. Informed by an historical awareness of Romantic hermeneutics and its later developments (as well as by an understanding of the circumstances conditioning the production and consumption of literature in this period), the book explores how readers are imagined, addressed, figured, and theorised in Romantic poetry and criticism (1790-1830). Models of canon-formation, intertextuality and reader-response are examined alongside the existence of reading-coteries, the social practices of reading, and reforms in copyright. Consideration is given to the philosophical and ideological influences which bear upon the status of reading at this time, as well as to the educational theories and practices which underpin reading-habits. Non-canonical writers are included, and special attention is given to the emergence of women's poetry - its repercussions for the poetics of reception.
This beautifully thought-through and carefully orchestrated book is remarkably wide-ranging in its materials, drawing not only on the work of canonical male poets, but also on the poetry of women writers and on the prose of Romantic essayistsThroughout, Newlyn strikes a balance between theoretical sophistication and nuanced practical criticism. This is a very accomplished and brilliant study. * Michael O'Neill *
Lucy Newlyn's fascinating new study reconsiders and historicises the theory of poetic influence, shifting the focus away from antecedents towards posterity. She brilliantly analyses the relations of fantasy, fear, and anticipation in the mind of the poet when confronted with the idea of an audience. In an impressively wide-ranging discussion, Newlyn shows how the rise of the reader as a figure of both allure and chastisement shaped the poetic projects of significant Romantic poets. The claims of the reader are, Newlyn argues, woven into poems, as both symptoms and defences. Newlyn tells a story of poetic identity which engages with both social life and literary tradition. * Anne Janowitz *
Lucy Newlyn's lucid and eloquent new book shows just how crude - and therefore symptomatic - our idea of literary influence has been. What is inspired about Newlyn's approach is that the newly emerging complicities between readers and writers that she traces in Romanticism begin to seem like the most illuminating paradigm for our distinctively modern relationships with ourselves and others. It is clear, after reading this book, that we have been living in the age of the anxiety of reception. * Adam Philips *
Lucy Newlyn's fascinating new study reconsiders and historicises the theory of poetic influence, shifting the focus away from antecedents towards posterity. She brilliantly analyses the relations of fantasy, fear, and anticipation in the mind of the poet when confronted with the idea of an audience. In an impressively wide-ranging discussion, Newlyn shows how the rise of the reader as a figure of both allure and chastisement shaped the poetic projects of significant Romantic poets. The claims of the reader are, Newlyn argues, woven into poems, as both symptoms and defences. Newlyn tells a story of poetic identity which engages with both social life and literary tradition. * Anne Janowitz *
Lucy Newlyn's lucid and eloquent new book shows just how crude - and therefore symptomatic - our idea of literary influence has been. What is inspired about Newlyn's approach is that the newly emerging complicities between readers and writers that she traces in Romanticism begin to seem like the most illuminating paradigm for our distinctively modern relationships with ourselves and others. It is clear, after reading this book, that we have been living in the age of the anxiety of reception. * Adam Philips *
Lucy Newlyn is Lecturer in English at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford. Her publications include Paradise Lost and the Romantic Reader (OUP 1993), Coleridge, Wordsworth, and the Language of Allusion (OUP 1986), and Coleridge's Imagination: Essays in Memory of Peter Laver (CUP 1985).
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780198187110 |
| ISBN 10 | 0198187114 |
| Title | Reading, Writing, and Romanticism |
| Author | Lucy Newlyn |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Year published | 2003-04-03 |
| Number of pages | 420 |
| Prizes | Winner of Winner of the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize 2001 awarded by the British Academy. |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |