Romantic Moods

Without a doubt, the most advanced restatement of the nature of feeling that I have encountered. Stunning in its mix of theoretical approaches, integration of historical context, and attention to a range of primary materials, both English and German. -- Alan Liu, University of California, Santa Barbara

In establishing this relationship between mood and voice, Pfau moves away from the conventional understanding of emotion as something "ownedor exclusively attributable to the individual and toward a theory of mood as fundamentally intersubjective and deserving of broader consideration in the study of Romanticism.This large and ambitious study reinterprets the evolution of British and German Romanticism as a progress through three successive 'moods.' By this term Pfau here means emotion "read in its embodied manifestation as the 'voice' of a historical moment, rather than that of a given individual." In constructing this reading, he draws on a multifaceted philosophical tradition influenced most strongly by Heidegger and Kant, but also by such wide-ranging figures as Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, and Adorno, among others. The result is a new understanding of the basis of the Romantic poet's voice (picking up on the German etymological link between Stimmung, 'mood,' and Stimme, 'voice') as a holistic cultural condition not localizable as either content or form, textual or psychic. This is a work for scholars and advanced students, one that is likely to stimulate considerable reaction and make a significant and enduring contribution to Romantic studies.