Relying on the author’s established expertise in rhetoric and political communication, this book re-contextualizes Romantic rhetorical theory from the late 18th and early 19th centuries to provide a foundation for a Neo-Romantic rhetorical theory for our own time. In the process, it uses a unique methodology to correct misconceptions about the rhetorical theories of many writers. Using a dialectical approach, the early chapters trace Romanticism through its opposition to the industrial revolution and the Enlightenment, back through Humanism and its opposition to Scholasticism, to its roots in St. Augustine’s writing. These chapters include a revisionist analysis of the church’s treatment of Galileo in the course of showing how difficult it was for scientific study to be accepted in Scholastic circles. The study goes on to argue that Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, and Edmund Burke were bridge figures to the Romantic Era. This move throws new light on exemplary painters, composers, writers and orators of the Romantic Era, who are examined in chapters eight and nine. Chapter ten focuses on Percy Bysshe Shelley and his development of the rhetorical poem, and thereby provides a new genre in the Romantic catalogue. Chapter Eleven turns to the Romantic rhetorical theories of Hugh Blair and Thomas De Quincey to empower those seeking to save the environment. The concluding chapter then synthesizes their theories with relevant contemporary rhetorical theories thereby constructing a Neo-Romantic theory for our own time. In the process, the book links the Romantics’ love of nature to the current environmental crisis.

Relying on the author’s established expertise in rhetorical theory and political communication, this book re-contextualizes Romantic rhetorical theory in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to provide a foundation for a Neo-Romantic rhetorical theory for our own time. In the process, it uses a unique methodology to correct misconceptions about many Romantic writers. The methodology of the early chapters uses a dialectical approach to trace Romanticism and its opposition, the Enlightenment, back through Humanism and its opposition, Scholasticism, to St. Augustine. These chapters include a revisionist analysis of the church’s treatment of Galileo in the course of showing how difficult it was for scientific study to be accepted in the academic world. The study also re-conceptualizes Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, and Edmund Burke as bridge figures to the Romantic Era instead of as Enlightenment figures. This move throws new light on the major artists of the Romantic Era, who are examined in chapters seven and eight. Chapter nine focuses on Percy Bysshe Shelley and his development of the rhetorical poem, and thereby provides a new genre in the Romantic catalogue. Chapter ten uses the foregoing to analyse and reconceptualize the rhetorical theories of Hugh Blair and Thomas De Quincey. The concluding chapter then synthesizes their theories with relevant contemporary rhetorical theories thereby constructing a Neo-Romantic theory for our own time. In the process, this book links the Romantics’ love of nature to the current environmental crisis.

Winner, 2011 Alpha Sigma Nu Book Award in Literature and Fine Arts The Neural Sublime brings recent work in cognitive neuroscience to bear on some famously vexed issues in British Romantic studies. In exciting and unprecedented ways, Alan Richardson demonstrates how developments in the neurosciences can transform the study of literary history. Richardson presents six exemplary studies, each exploring a different intersection of Romanticism and the sciences of the mind and brain: the experience of the sublime and the neuroscience of illusion; the Romantic imagination and visual imaging; the figure of apostrophe and linguistic theory; fictional representations of the mind and “theory of mind” theory; depictions of sibling incest and neo-Darwinian theories of mental behavior; and representations of female speech and cognitive developmental psychology. Richardson’s insightful analysis opens fresh perspectives on British Romanticism, pointing scholars to new developments in cognitive literary studies. He combines elements of new historicist analysis with original—and much-needed—models for understanding language, subjectivity, and social behavior. Far from signaling a departure from the prevalent critical approaches of new historicism, Richardson argues, cognitive theory presents an essential complement to them. The Neural Sublime features an array of cognitive and neuroscientific approaches, providing an engaging and readable introduction to the emergent field of cognitive literary studies.

This wide-ranging and original book reappraises the role of genre, and genre theory, in British Romanticism. Analyzing numerous examples from 1760 to 1830, David Duff examines the generic innovations and experiments which propel the Romantic 'revolution in literature', but also the fascination with archaic forms such as the ballad, sonnet, and romance, whose revival and transformation make Romanticism a 'retro' movement as well as a revolutionary one. The tension between the drives to 'make it old' and to 'make it new' generates one of the most dynamic phases in the history of literature, whose complications are played out in the critical writing of the period as well as its creative literature. Incorporating extensive research on classification systems and reception history as well as on literary forms themselves, Romanticism and the Uses of Genre demonstrates how new ideas about the role and status of genre influenced not only authors but also publishers, editors, reviewers, and readers. The focus is on poetry, but a wider spectrum of genres is considered, a central theme being the relationship - hierarchical, competitive, combinatory - between genres. Among the topics addressed are generic primitivism and forgery; Enlightenment theory and the 'cognitive turn'; the impact of German transcendental aesthetics; organic and anti-organic form; the role of genre in the French Revolution debate; the poetics of the fragment; and the theory and practice of genre-mixing. Unprecedented in its scope and detail, this important book establishes a new way of reading Romantic literature which brings into focus for the first time its tangled relationship with genre.

The Event of Style in Literature brings discussions about the question of style up-to-date by schematising the principal issues relating to the topic through a critical overview of the canon of style studies. It reads the work of Jacques Derrida, Maurice Blanchot, and Hans-Georg Gadamer as groundbreaking and 'eventful' interventions.

Empiricism favors the visual over the verbal, the literal over the rhetorical, the static over the temporal: This is the standard charge leveled by literary theorists and writers. It is, Jules David Law demonstrates, remarkably misguided. His ambitious and challenging book explores the interplay of language and visual perception at the heart of empiricism. A re-evaluation of the British empiricist tradition from the perspective of contemporary literary theory, it also offers a sustained challenge to theory itself. In failing to grasp the issues confronting early empiricist writers or to be fully aware of their rhetorical strategies, Law says, theory has defined itself needlessly in opposition to empiricism. -- Description from http://www.booktopia.com.au (April 19, 2012).