Fate of Progress in British Romanticism

Explores the idea of progress in British Romantic literature by analyzing converging arguments among political theorists, historians, and writers of poems and novels from the 1770s to the 1820s to show how these writers reshaped dominant narratives about political progress.

Mark Canuel is Professor of English and Director of the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is author of Justice, Dissent, and the Sublime (Johns Hopkins, 2012), as well as other books and articles on Romantic literature, political theory, and aesthetics.

Introduction: Rouzing the Faculties
1: The Forms of Romantic Progressivism
2: Thomson, Barbauld, and the Progress of Liberty
3: Hope, Politics, and The Prelude
4: How Shelley Moves
5: Lyric Progressivism
6: The Romantic Novel and the Progress of Civilizations
Conclusion: The Fate of Romantic Progressivism
Bibliography