Eternity in British Romantic Poetry
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Liverpool University Press
Published:4th Mar '25
£34.99
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Eternity in British Romantic Poetry explores the representation of the relationship between eternity and the mortal world in the poetry of the period. It offers an original approach to Romanticism that demonstrates, against the grain, the dominant intellectual preoccupation of the era: the relationship between the mortal and the eternal. The project's scope is two-fold: firstly, it analyses the prevalence and range of images of eternity (from apocalypse and afterlife to transcendence) in Romantic poetry; secondly, it opens up a new and more nuanced focus on how Romantic poets imagined and interacted with the idea of eternity. Every poet featured in the book seeks and finds their uniqueness in their apprehension of eternity. From Blake’s assertion of the Eternal Now to Keats’s defiance of eternity, Wordsworth’s ‘two consciousnesses’ versus Coleridge’s capacious poetry, Byron’s swithering between versions of eternity compared to Shelleyan yearning, and Hemans’s superlative account of everlasting female suffering, each poet finds new versions of eternity to explore or reject. This monograph sets out a paradigm-shifting approach to the aesthetic and philosophical power of eternity in Romantic poetry.
‘The fact that eternity remains fundamentally unknowable to these poets means that, for Callaghan, imaginative and diverse conceptualisations of eternity are allowed to proliferate: her work skilfully illustrates poetry’s status as a mutable medium that enables these poets to theorise, posit, and explore such vast and intangible concepts.’ Catherine Rose Maw, university of Newcastle
‘Eternity in British Romantic Poetry offers, therefore, pioneering ideas that will exert a great deal of influence on the future generation of scholars and students of Romanticism. And, most importantly, this monograph proves, once again, that Callaghan is a leading scholar of our generation.’ Francesco Marchionni, Durham University
‘Eternity in British Romantic Poetry offers a compelling approach to a theme that has been somewhat underaddressed in Romantic-era scholarship.’Quentin Bailey, The Wordsworth Circle
‘Callaghan’s perceptive and incisive book prompts us not only to return to but also to move beyond the writings of Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, and Hemans to other poets of the Romantic period to (re)discover how “Each poet’s rendering of eternity can be as unique as a fingerprint.”’ Andrew Burkett, European Romantic Review
‘Refreshingly unembarrassed by the religious faith held by some of these writers, Callaghan takes seriously the seven poets’ various dealings with this question: “how might poetry access, express, and understand eternity, if eternity exists?” (…) (T)he many faces of eternity in British Romantic poetry – “a concrete reality, a seductive fiction, and a terrifying blank” (…) – are vividly illustrated in this compelling book.’ Jessica Campbell, Forum for Modern Language Studies
ISBN: 9781836243991
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
336 pages