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Counterfactual Romanticism

Damian Walford Davies editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Manchester University Press

Published:30th May '23

Should be back in stock very soon

Counterfactual Romanticism cover

Innovatively extending counterfactual thought experiments from history and the social sciences to literary historiography, criticism and theory, Counterfactual Romanticism reveals the ways in which the shapes of Romanticism are conditioned by that which did not come to pass. Exploring various modalities of counterfactual speculation and inquiry across a range of Romantic-period authors, genres and concerns, this collection offers a radical new purchase on literary history, on the relationship between history and fiction, and on our historicist methods to date – and thus on the Romanticisms we (think we) have inherited.

Counterfactual Romanticism provides a ground-breaking method of re-reading literary pasts and our own reading presents; in the process, literary production, texts and reading practices are unfossilised and defamiliarised.

'... a fascinating, provocative, and suitably eclectic collection that raises productive questions for eighteenth century specialists.'
Eighteenth-Century Fiction

ISBN: 9781526171832

Dimensions: 216mm x 138mm x 22mm

Weight: 544g

336 pages