Romantic Norths

"Romantic Norths challenges the assumption that European Romanticism was dominated by the supposedly major British, French and German traditions. The collection instead focuses on complex reciprocal influences through trans-national circulation, and demonstrates that canon-formation in Britain has close parallels to, and frequent dependence on, Nordic culture. It exemplifies the high quality of recent European scholarship and debate throughout, providing a salutary reminder to most Anglophone readers of how little they know about these issues (and how much of what they had assumed was wrong)." (Prof Stephen Clark, Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Letters, University of Tokyo, Japan)

This book explores various forms of cultural influence and exchange between Britain and the Nordic countries in the late eighteenth century and romantic period. Broadly new-historicist in approach, but drawing also on influential descriptions of genre, discipline, mediation, cultural exchange, and comparative methodologies, these essays not only constitute a substantial and innovative contribution to scholarly understanding of the development of romanticisms and romantic nationalisms in Britain and the Nordic countries, but also describe a pattern of cultural encounter which was predicated upon exchange and a sense of commonality rather than upon the perception of difference or alterity which has so often been discerned by critical descriptions of British romantic-period engagements with non-British cultures. The volume ought to appeal to a broad and genuinely international academic audience with interests in eighteenth-century and romantic-period culture in Britain and Scandinavia aswell as to undergraduates taking courses in eighteenth-century, romantic, and Scandinavian studies.