The Call of Classical Literature in the Romantic Age

The Call of Classical Literature in the Romantic Age reveals the extent to which writers now called romantic venerate and use classical texts to transform lyric and narrative poetry, the novel, mythology, politics, and issues of race and slavery, as well as to provide models for their own literary careers and personal lives. On both sides of the Atlantic the classics-including the surprising influence of Hebrew, regarded as a classical language-play a major role in what becomes labeled romanticism only later in the nineteenth century.

The relation between classic and romantic is not one of opposition but subtle interpenetration and mutual transformation. While romantic writers regard what they are doing as new, this attitude in no way prompts them to abjure valuable lessons of genre, expression, and judgment flowing from the classical authors they love. This volume disturbs categories that have become too settled.

K. P. Van Anglen is Senior Lecturer of English, Emeritus, at Boston University.

James Engell is Gurney Professor of English and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard University.