This book explores how the meaning of 'poetic atmosphere' developed within larger ideas of Romanticism, particularly through the poetry of William Wordsworth, who was the first to see its potential as metaphor. Thomas H. Ford here makes a significant contribution to debates in the areas of literary ecology and ecocriticism.

This book provides a historically-nuanced account of anxieties about decline in Romantic-era Britain. Combining close readings of Romantic literary texts with study of works from political economy, historical writing, classical studies, and media history Jonathan Sachs offers, through the lens of decline, a new way of understanding British Romanticism.