
Why the Romantics Matter Peter Gay
- Price: £18.99
- Add to Basket Buy ebook
Share this page:
- Series:
- Why X Matters Series
- Format:
- Hardback
- Publication date:
- 13 Jan 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780300144291
- Imprint:
- Yale University Press
- Dimensions:
- 176 pages: 197 x 133 x 17mm
- Sales territories:
- World
Categories:
With his usual wit and élan, esteemed historian Peter Gay enters the contentious, long-standing debates over the romantic period. Here, in this concise and inviting volume, he reformulates the definition of romanticism and provides a fresh account of the immense achievements of romantic writers and artists in all media.
Gay’s scope is wide, his insights sharp. He takes on the recurring questions about how to interpret romantic figures and their works. Who qualifies to be a romantic? What ties together romantic figures who practice in different countries, employ different media, even live in different centuries? How is modernism indebted to romanticism, if at all?
Guiding readers through the history of the romantic movement across Britain, France, Germany, and Switzerland, Gay argues that the best way to conceptualize romanticism is to accept its complicated nature and acknowledge that there is no “single basket” to contain it. Gay conceives of romantics in “families,” whose individual members share fundamental values but retain unique qualities. He concludes by demonstrating that romanticism extends well into the twentieth century, where its deep and lasting impact may be measured in the work of writers such as T. S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf.
"With his usual deft, even chatty style, Peter Gay leads us through the paradoxes of the major European Romantics and documents their impact on Modernism. There is no page in his book that is not thoughtful and witty."—Geoffrey Hartman, author of The Eighth Day: Poems Old and New
“In this instructive and insightful book, a capstone to a career that has now spanned more than six decades, Peter Gay muses with characteristic brilliance and learning about the deep connections between Romanticism and Modernism, and how they have shaped the way the modern age thinks and feels.”—David A. Bell, Princeton University
“With Peter Gay's characteristic elegance and erudition, Why the Romantics Matter celebrates the power of Romanticism from the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth—a movement whose energies are inseparable from the self-image of men and women today.”—David Bromwich, Yale University
‘Until now the Romantic period was almost the only one about which prolific cultural historian Gay (now in his 90’s) had not written. Part of the Yale Why X Matters series, his erudite and idiosyncratic narrative argues the importance of Beethoven, Wilde and Kadinsky (his favoured exemplars, among many) to the developing story of art.’—Peter Swaab, the Sunday Telegraph.
“Highly readable.”—Robert Fulford, National Post
Winner of the 2015 Jean-Pierre Barricelli Prize given by the International Conference on Romanticism.
-
Yale French Studies, Number 139
Anne E Linton£50.00 -
From Sarah to Sydney
June Cummins£25.00 -
Sodom and Gomorrah
Marcel Proust£65.00 -
Radical Vision
Soyica Diggs Colbert£25.00 -
Worlds Beyond
Laura Forsberg£35.00 -
Magnum Opus
Zander Brietzke£45.00 -
The Great Mongol Shahnama
Robert Hillenbrand£150.00 -
Clairvoyant of the Small
Susan Bernofsky£25.00 -
Yale French Studies, Number 137/138
Thomas C. Connolly£50.00 -
How the Just So Stories Were Made
John Batchelor£18.99 -
Hernando Colon's New World of Books
Jose Maria Perez Fernandez£25.00 -
The Global Indies
Ashley L. Cohen£50.00 -
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson£30.00 -
Practical Form
Abigail Zitin£55.00 -
The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 9
Samuel D. Kassow£150.00 -
Fabulous Monsters
Alberto Manguel£12.99 -
The Illuminated World Chronicle
Nina Rowe£50.00 -
For Now
Eileen Myles£12.99 -
The Industrialist and the Diva
Walter Goffart£25.00 -
The Lions' Den
Susie Linfield£15.00
-
Why the New Deal Matters
Eric Rauchway£20.00 -
Why Writing Matters
Nicholas Delbanco£16.99 -
Why Baseball Matters
Susan Jacoby£12.99 -
Why Baseball Matters
Susan Jacoby£20.00 -
Why Preservation Matters
Max Page£18.99 -
Why Acting Matters
David Thomson£19.00 -
Why Acting Matters
David Thomson£19.99 -
Why Niebuhr Matters
Charles Lemert£26.00 -
Why Trilling Matters
Adam Kirsch£19.00 -
Why the Constitution Matters
Mark Tushnet£10.99 -
Why Architecture Matters
Paul Goldberger£11.99 -
Why Translation Matters
Edith Grossman£14.99 -
Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters
Louis Begley£26.00 -
Why Arendt Matters
Elisabeth Young-Bruehl£19.00 -
Why Poetry Matters
Jay Parini£12.99