Georgic Modernity and British Romanticism
Poetry and the Mediation of History
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Cambridge University Press
Published:1st Mar '08
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Goodman traces connections between Georgic verse and developments in other spheres from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries.
This book traces connections between Georgic verse and developments in other spheres from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries: the mediation of perception by scientific instruments, of events by newspapers, of knowledge by the feelings, of the past by narrative. Kevis Goodman argues that because of the Georgic's concern for the transmission of knowledge and the extension of the senses over time and space, the verse of this period, far from burying history in nature (a position more often associated with Romanticism), instead presents new ways of perceiving history in terms of sensation. In this way Goodman opens up the subject of Georgic to larger areas of literary and cultural study including the history of the feelings and the prehistory of modern media concerns in relation to print culture and early scientific technology.
'It would be difficult, to my mind, to exaggerate the importance of this argument and the book it concludes. By tracing the history of georgic under-presence in eighteenth-century poetry, Georgic Modernity and British Romanticism resituates history within literature and finally builds a compelling case for the re-legitimation of Romantic temporality. Kevis Goodman outlines here a genuine history that can live in poetry, and she does so without either denying the value of ideological critique or compromising on the painfulness of historical experience. This work delivers an important qualification to historicism, one that should unsettle some of the assumptions that guide contemporary criticism.' Wordsworth Circle
'Highly recommended.' Choice
ISBN: 9780521057295
Dimensions: 228mm x 152mm x 14mm
Weight: 382g
248 pages