Change time: Timing and placing late Romanticism

Abstract

Acting on recently surging critical interest in late Romanticism, a subperiod taken to range roughly from the later 1810s through the 1840s, the present article reviews past and current work in this burgeoning field, particularly highlighting developing avenues for future research. Two competing accounts of late Romanticism are contrasted: a long-dominant take which regards the subperiod as fundamentally secondary, derived, and inferior; and a recently energised perspective which reveals the vibrancy and innovativeness of late-Romantic culture. If the former construes history by prioritising the experiences of poets, acting on a cultural paradigm that pivots on the centrality of a particularised genre, the latter pursues a Romanticism that is reconfigured under the pressure of a developing media system, in which multiple specialised genres acquire distinct functions. The discussion of these two perspectives is anchored in the late-Romantic fascination for times and places; that is, in debates pertaining to periodicity and eventfulness, and to nationalism and transnationalism.