Nineteenth-Century Literature in Transition: The 1800s

How did British literature develop in the wake of the radical 1790s and during the years of war, reaction, and uncertain renewal that constituted the nineteenth century's first decade? The essays in this volume examine the literary forms and cultural formations that emerged during this paradoxical era of aftermath and new beginnings. They reexamine a period within the Romantic period, and within the larger context of the nineteenth century, exploring the historical self-consciousness of this post-revolutionary era and highlighting the emergence of ideas of temporality and historicity that lead us to reconsider the past as comprised of decadal units, of centuries, and of things like 'the age of revolutions' and the spirits that animate them. Using fresh approaches and methodologies, the essays in this book examine the beginnings of the nineteenth century and its literature according to the critical, theoretical, and archival possibilities of the twenty-first.