Waterloo and the Romantic Imagination [Hardcover]

Waterloo and the Romantic Imagination offers a new and challenging look at the cultural significance of the Battle of Waterloo, and the impact it had on British Romantic culture. Drawing on a range of approaches it aims to redefine the Romantic period as an age of inter- and intra-national conflict, thus overturning conventional notions of 'The Romantic Project', and re-writing the period from first principles. Topics covered include: the impact of Waterloo on Romantic ideas of individual and national identity, the representation of the dead and wounded in poetry, painting and prose, the work of canonical and non-canonical poets.List of Illustrations List of Abbreviations Introduction: The Return to Waterloo Walter Scott: The Discipline of History Exhibiting War: Panoramas and Battle Tours Southey's Vision of Command Coleridge: The Imagination at War Wordsworth's Abyss of Weakness 'For Want of a Better Cause': Lord Byron's War with Posterity Conclusion Bibliography Index

'Waterloo and the Romantic Imagination is a stimulating and exciting book, written with authority and intelligence...' - Simon Bainbridge, Department of English, Keele University

'This study of the British literary response to Waterloo is a book about endings: the ending of the long war with France, the ending of forty thousand lives...an ambitious and intelligent book from which we can all learn.' - Gavin Edwards, University of Glamorgan Literature and History

' [A] persuasive and thorough analysis.' - Gillen D'Arcy Wood, University of Illinois, USA