William Blake's work presents a stern challenge to historical criticism. Jon Mee's new study meets that challenge by investigating contexts outside the domain of standard literary histories. He traces the distinctive rhetoric of the illuminated books to the French Revolution controversy of the 1790s and Blake's fusion of the diverse currents of radicalism abroad in that decade. Dangerous Enthusiasm presents a more comprehensively politicized picture of Blake than any previous study. It is supported by a wealth of original research which will be of interest to historians and literary critics...

William Blake's work presents a stern challenge to historical criticism. Jon Mee's study meets that challenge by investigating contexts outside the domain of standard literary histories. He traces the distinctive rhetoric of the illuminated books to the French Revolution controversy of the 1790s and Blake's fusion of the diverse currents of radicalism abroad in that decade. Dangerous Enthusiasm presents a more comprehensively politicized picture of Blake than any previous study. It is supported by a wealth of original research which will be of interest to historians and literary critics...

This study looks at the way writers in the Romantic period, both canonical and popular, attempted to situate themselves in relation to enthusiasm, frequently craving the idea of its therapeutic power, but often also seeking to distinguish their writing from what many regarded as its destructive and pathological power.

Offering an introduction to British literature challenging traditional eighteenth-century and Romantic studies, this Companion explores the development of literary genres and modes in a period of rapid change. Its contributors demonstrate how literature was influenced by such historical factors as the development of the book trade, the rise of literary criticism and the expansion of commercial society and empire. Linking established authors with those gaining new attention from scholars, the collection's broad scope makes it essential reading for students of eighteenth-century literature and...

What is enthusiasm? Enthusiasm for most of the eighteenth century was identified with excess of religious feeling, although it came increasingly to be used to describe the unregulated and infectious urgings of the crowd more generally. Yet there was a developing alternative understanding of the term which identified it with a therapeutic influx of feeling in an increasingly formalistic and commodified world. This understanding came to be particularly identified with poetry. Enthusiasm was deemed a necessary condition of poetry by the end of the century, but not a sufficient one. For without...

Famously, Blake believed that 'without contraries' there could be no 'progression'.Conflict was integral to his artistic vision, and his style, but it had more to do with critical engagement than any urge to victory. The essays in this volume look at conflict as it marked Blake's thinking on politics, religion and the visual arts."

A Tale of Two Cities has always been one of Dickens's most popular texts. Using a variety of disciplinary approaches, this new collection of essays examines the origins of Dickens vision of the French Revolution, the literary power of the text itself, and its enduring place in British culture through stage and screen adaptations.