The Romantic era in England and Germany saw a sudden renewal of prophetic modes of writing. Biblical prophecy and, to a lesser extent, classical oracle again became viable models for poetry and even for journalistic prose. Notably, this development arose out of the new-found freedom of biblical interpretation that began in the mid-eighteenth century, as the Bible was increasingly seen to be a literary and mythical text. Taking Walter Benjamin's thinking about history as a point of departure, the author shows how the model for Romantic prophecy emerges less as a prediction of the future than...

The Romantic era in England and Germany saw a sudden renewal of prophetic modes of writing, arising from a new-found freedom of biblical interpretation. This text surveys developments in 18th-century biblical hermeneutics, culminating in close readings of works by Blake, Holderlin and Coleridge.