England in 1819: The Politics of Literary Culture and the Case of Romantic Historicism

by James Chandler

Many of the writers from 1819, argues James Chandler, were acutely aware not only of their writing's place in history, but also of its place as history—a realization of a literary "spirit of the age" that resonates strongly with the current "return to history" in literary studies. Chandler explores the ties between Romantic and contemporary historicism and offers a series of cases of his own built around key texts from 1819.

"1819? At first sight, it might not seem a 'hot date'; but as James Chandler argues in his powerful book, it would be a mistake to overlook a year of such exceptional political conflagration and literary pyrotechnics in British history. Chandler's study is a wide-ranging, enormously ambitious, densely packed, closely argued work."—John Brewer, New Republic

"The book's largest argument, and the source of its considerable revelations, is that late twentieth-century practices of cultural history-writing have their roots in the peculiar Romantic historicism born in post-Waterloo Britain."—Jon Klancher, Times Literary Supplement

"A monumental work of scholarship."—Terry Eagleton, The Independent

Genres: Romanticism, History, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism

606 pages, Paperback

First published April 11, 1998

Reviews

[Katarzyna Bartoszynska · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent discussion of the development of Romantic historicism, brilliantly intertwined with a discussion of the "return to history" in literary and cultural studies. The first section should be required reading for anyone who works on the intersection of history and culture, especially literary scholars, historians, and anthropologists.

[sezen]

265. sayfaya kadar satır satır okudum ve memnun kaldım.

[Denis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chandler's book has a very compelling central thesis about 1819 as the age of "the spirit of the age" and his connection between Romantic and modern historicism. I really wanted to love this book, but his fantastic argument is hindered by the fact that at times he allows his writing to drift into the sort of unnecessarily obscure prose that gives academic writing a bad name.