Among the Romantics
E. P. Thompson and the Poetics of Disenchantment
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10066409 |
|---|---|
| Authors | James Epstein (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 56 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 322-350 |
| Publication date | 2017-03-31 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of British Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-9371 • E-ISSN: 1545-6986 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/jbr.2017.6 |
| OpenAlex | W2602054365 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 79 |
This article examines key themes in the political and intellectual life of E. P. Thompson. It argues for the centrality of romanticism to his work; it focuses on his unfinished study of the early Romantics. Thompson drew parallels between socialist hopes and disappointments of his own day and the reactions of the early romantic poets to the failed promise of the French Revolution. This article charts the trajectory of the early Romantics as they moved from political engagement to retreat, and relates this trajectory to Thompson's own politics. Thompson discerned a pattern whereby intellectuals and artists moved through stages from political engagement to disenchantment and then to “apostasy” or default. Disenchantment could be a productive condition; at issue was how the poet handled the “authenticity of experience,” how disenchantment was dealt with in verse. Both Thompson and the Romantics privileged the concept of “experience” which they set in opposition to abstract theory. The article's final section turns to themes that Thompson had intended to address but left unfinished, including shifting views of patriotism and the defeated cause of women's rights. For Thompson the romantic impulse was ultimately linked to utopian desire, to the capacity to imagine that which is “not yet.”
Aesthetics · Art · Disenchantment · Literature · Opposition (politics · Poetics · Poetry · Political science · Politics · Romance · Sociology · History · Law · Literature: history, themes, analysis · Poetry Analysis and Criticism · Theatre and Performance Studies
Interesting times
Britons
Power, Politics and People
William Morris
People's history and socialist theory
Romantics, rebels and reactionaries
John Thelwall in the Wordsworth Circle
Organising Poetry
The Early Feminists
Cultural Marxism in Postwar Britain
Die vielköpfige Hydra
Making of the English Working Class
The Moment of "Scrutiny"
The French Revolution and British Popular Politics
The overthrow of colonial slavery 1776–1848
Women, Gender and Enlightenment
Mothers of the Nation
Men and the Making of Modern British Feminism
Slavery and British Society 1776–1846
Romantics and Renegades
Subject to Others
The Poverty of Theory and Other Essays
William Morris, Romantic to Revolutionary
Realism, utopia and the mushroom cloud
That Odious Class of Men Called Democrats’
History, Politics and Reputation
Robert Southey and the Intellectual Origins of Romantic Conservatism
Resisting Napoleon
Women Against Slavery
New Letters of Robert Southey
The British Armed Nation 1793–1815
Socialism and the romantic 'self
Byron, Gandhi and the Thompsons
Thompson, Godwin, and the French Revolution
The Making of the English Working Class
The Language of Patriotism 1750-19141
Black heroes/white writers
Thompson's Second Front
The Price of Experience
Whigs and Hunters
Visions of History
Whigs and Hunters
Customs in Common
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,14 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2019 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |