Orientation in European Romanticism

Paul Hamilton is Professor of English at Queen Mary University of London. He has been Visiting Fellow at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and Visiting Professor at La Sapienza University of Rome. His book Metaromanticism: Aesthetics, Literature, Theory (2003) won the Jean-Pierre Barricelli book prize. His most recent books are, as editor, The Oxford handbook of European Romanticism (2016) and, as author, Realpoetik: European Romanticism and Literary Politics (2013).

• Part I. Disorientating Kant: 1. Introduction: sublimity and abjection; 2. Kleist and the Kant-crisis; 3. Hölderlin and the philosophers; Part II. The Uses of Abjection: 4. The feminist humanism of Felicia Hemans: the poetics of Records of Woman (1828); 5. Thomas Moore and the national lyric; 6. Ugo Foscolo's literary hypocrisy; Part III. Optimism and Pessimism: 7. Balzac's comic pessimism; 8. George Sand's optimism; Part IV. Romancing the Modern: 9. Retrospect: Rilke translates Leopardi.

'Orientation in European Romanticism lends itself to specialists and nonspecialists alike if one has the grit and raw passion for further exploration of European Romanticism and its continued aesthetic influence. This is indeed a worthy, if challenging, addition to the current critical literature on European Romanticism and aesthetics in general.' Wayne Deakin, European Romantic Review