Modernity's Mist

British Romanticism and the Poetics of Anticipation

Nonfiction, History, Reference, Historiography, Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, Poetry History & Criticism, British
Cover of the book Modernity's Mist by Emily Rohrbach, Fordham University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Emily Rohrbach ISBN: 9780823267989
Publisher: Fordham University Press Publication: December 1, 2015
Imprint: Fordham University Press Language: English
Author: Emily Rohrbach
ISBN: 9780823267989
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Publication: December 1, 2015
Imprint: Fordham University Press
Language: English

Modernity’s Mist explores an understudied aspect of Romanticism: its future-oriented poetics. Whereas Romanticism is well known for its relation to the past, Emily Rohrbach situates Romantic epistemological uncertainties in relation to historiographical debates that opened up a radically unpredictable and fast- approaching future. As the rise of periodization made the project of defining the “spirit of the age” increasingly urgent, the changing sense of futurity rendered the historical dimensions of the present deeply elusive.

While historicist critics often are interested in what Romantic writers and their readers would have known, Rohrbach draws attention to moments when these writers felt they could not know the historical dimensions of their own age. Illuminating the poetic strategies Keats, Austen, Byron, and Hazlitt used to convey that sense of mystery, Rohrbach describes a poetic grammar of future anteriority—of uncertainty concerning what will have been. Romantic writers, she shows, do not simply reflect the history of their time; their works make imaginable a new way of thinking the historical present when faced with the temporalities of modernity.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Modernity’s Mist explores an understudied aspect of Romanticism: its future-oriented poetics. Whereas Romanticism is well known for its relation to the past, Emily Rohrbach situates Romantic epistemological uncertainties in relation to historiographical debates that opened up a radically unpredictable and fast- approaching future. As the rise of periodization made the project of defining the “spirit of the age” increasingly urgent, the changing sense of futurity rendered the historical dimensions of the present deeply elusive.

While historicist critics often are interested in what Romantic writers and their readers would have known, Rohrbach draws attention to moments when these writers felt they could not know the historical dimensions of their own age. Illuminating the poetic strategies Keats, Austen, Byron, and Hazlitt used to convey that sense of mystery, Rohrbach describes a poetic grammar of future anteriority—of uncertainty concerning what will have been. Romantic writers, she shows, do not simply reflect the history of their time; their works make imaginable a new way of thinking the historical present when faced with the temporalities of modernity.

More books from Fordham University Press

Cover of the book Ordinary Oblivion and the Self Unmoored by Emily Rohrbach
Cover of the book The Routes Not Taken by Emily Rohrbach
Cover of the book Flirtations by Emily Rohrbach
Cover of the book Pets, People, and Pragmatism by Emily Rohrbach
Cover of the book Artists' SoHo by Emily Rohrbach
Cover of the book Lincoln Revisited by Emily Rohrbach
Cover of the book Orthodox Christianity and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Southeastern Europe by Emily Rohrbach
Cover of the book The Unconstructable Earth by Emily Rohrbach
Cover of the book The Creative Retrieval of Saint Thomas Aquinas by Emily Rohrbach
Cover of the book The Underside of Politics by Emily Rohrbach
Cover of the book Celebricities by Emily Rohrbach
Cover of the book A Century of Subways by Emily Rohrbach
Cover of the book The Rigor of Things by Emily Rohrbach
Cover of the book Walking New York by Emily Rohrbach
Cover of the book Zonas Peligrosas by Emily Rohrbach
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy