An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age British Culture 1776-1832

by McCalman, Iain; Mee, Jon; Russell, Gillian; Tuite, Clara; Fullagar, Kate; Hardy, Patsy

• ISBN13: 9780198122975
• ISBN10: 0198122977
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-10-28
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

For the first time in this innovative reference book the Romantic Age is surveyed across all aspects of British culture, rather than in literary or artistic terms alone. The Companion's two-part structure presents forty-two essays on major topics, by leading international experts,cross-referenced to an extensive alphabetical section covering all the principal figures, events, and movements in the broad culture of the period. Aimed at students and general readers as well as scholars, the essays constitute an accessible, pluralistic, and modern social history of the epoch; thealphabetical entries can either be used alongside them, for deeper information on specific subjects, or as a free-standing reference tool. The volume as a whole embraces both high and low culture, and explores its subject across the whole breadth of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. The book's multi-disciplinary approach treats Romanticism both in aesthetic terms -- its meaning for painting, music, design, architecture, and above all literature -- and as a historical epoch of 'revolutionary' transformations which ushered in modern democratic and industrialized society. In thisperiod Wedgwood turned taste into a commercial enterprise, Pierce Egan took Britain by storm with his sensational accounts of low-life in the capital, and Mary Shelley created, in Frankenstein, one of the enduring myths of scientific advance. The Companion revitalizes canonical Romantic figures inthe context of the historical events, political and linguistic debates, commercial pressures, and plebeian subcultures of their day, as well as bringing back into historical focus individuals and events whose impact has often been muffled or forgotten. With over 100 integrated illustrations, bibliographies accompanying all the major essays, and an index to Part 1, this is the most comprehensive volume of its kind, offering a unique breadth of information to scholars and students of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British culture, literature,and history. EDITORIAL BOARD: John Brewer (University of California) Marilyn Butler (Exeter College, University of Oxford) James Chandler (University of Chicago) Jerome J. McGann ( University of Virginia, Charlottesville) Mark Philp (Oriel College, Oxford) Robert Webb (University of Maryland)

Author Biography

Iain McCalman is Director of the Humanities Research Centre of the Australian National University, Canberra.

Table of Contents

Notes to Readers	ix
Essay Contributors	xi
Entry Contributors	xii
Introduction: A Romantic Age Companion	1	(14)
Iain McCalman
PART ONE
1. Transforming Polity and Nation	15	(76)
Revolution	17	(9)
Mark Philp
War	26	(8)
J. E. Cookson
Democracy	34	(8)
H. T. Dickinson
Women	42	(9)
Barbara Caine
Empire	51	(7)
John Gascoigne
Slavery	58	(8)
James Walvin
Policing	66	(7)
David Philips
Law	73	(9)
David Lemmings
Utopianism	82	(9)
Gregory Claeys
II. Reordering Social and Private Worlds	91	(88)
Religion	93	(9)
R. K. Webb
Sensibility	102	(12)
G. J. Barker-Benfield
Poverty	114	(11)
Sarah Lloyd
Domesticity	125	(8)
Clara Tuite
Industrialization	133	(9)
John Stevenson
Class	142	(10)
Eileen Janes Yeo
Land	152	(9)
Anne Janowitz
Education	161	(9)
Ian Britain
Medicine	170	(9)
Roy Porter
III. Culture, Consumption, and the Arts	179	(118)
Consumerism	181	(6)
Roy Porter
Viewing	187	(10)
C. Suzanne Matheson
Publishing	197	(10)
John Brewer
Iain McCalman
Prints	207	(7)
David Bindman
Popular Culture	214	(9)
Iain McCalman
Maureen Perkins
Theatre	223	(9)
Gillian Russell
Design	232	(10)
Celina Fox
Music	242	(8)
Cyril Ehrlich
Simon McVeigh
Painting	250	(10)
Mark Hallett
Architecture	260	(10)
Daniel Abramson
Poetry	270	(9)
Jerome J. McGann
Prose	279	(7)
Jon Klancher
Novels	286	(11)
Fiona Robertson
IV. Emerging Knowledges	297	(102)
Enlightenment	299	(12)
Martin Fitzpatrick
Political Economy	311	(9)
Donald Winch
Natural Philosophy (Science)	320	(8)
Richard Yeo
Antiquarianism (Popular)	328	(10)
Marilyn Butler
Mythology	338	(7)
Nigel Leask
Exploration	345	(9)
Nicholas Thomas
History	354	(7)
James Chandler
Psychology	361	(8)
Robert Brown
Language	369	(9)
Jon Mee
Literary Theory	378	(21)
Peter Otto
Index to Part One	387	(12)
PART TWO Alphabetical Entries	399	(380)
Illustration Acknowledgements	779