The Poetics of Spice

Romantic Consumerism and the Exotic

Timothy Morton author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:1st Jun '06

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The Poetics of Spice cover

This 2000 book explores the literary and cultural significance of spice, and the spice trade, in Romantic literature.

This 2000 book focuses on the significance of spice, and the spice trade, in Romantic literature, shedding light on the impact of the growing consumerism and capitalist ideology. Timothy Morton surveys literary, political, medical, travel, trade and philosophical literature, offering new readings of Keats, Shelley and Southey among many others.This 2000 book considers the literary and cultural significance of spice, and the spice trade, in Romantic literature, shedding new light on the impact of consumerism and capitalist ideology on writers of the period. Timothy Morton demonstrates how the emerging consumer culture was characterized by an ornate, figuratively rich mode of representation which he describes as 'the poetics of spice'. This is the focal point for a probing analysis that addresses a host of related themes - exoticism, orientalism, colonialism, the slave trade, race and gender issues, and, above all, capitalism. Employing a mixture of Marxist, deconstructive and psychoanalytic theory, Morton explores how capitalist ideology was inscribed in the very materials of consumption. The book takes a wide historical perspective, surveying a range of literary, political, medical, travel, trade and philosophical texts, and includes readings of Milton, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Leigh Hunt, Charlotte Smith and Southey among many others.

'Only one word describes Timothy Morton's The Poetics of Spice: Spicy. Like an exotic dish this book is both enticing and overwhelming.' BARS Bulletin

ISBN: 9780521026666

Dimensions: 226mm x 152mm x 18mm

Weight: 454g

300 pages