In The Ethics of Romanticism Laurence Lockridge vigorously revives ethical criticism and at the same time brings to light the Romantics' profound engagement with ethical questions.

In this unique collection of essays, ten distinguished critics and biographers consider what it means to narrate a life. Their illustrative texts are largely taken from nineteenth-century biography, autobiography, and the novel, but narrative is the broader genre that unites their various inquiries. The principal issues are framed by Margaret Atwood, J. Hillis Miller, and Phyllis Rose. Atwood compares and contrasts the biographer and the novelist as creators of narratives, emphasizing that the difference is in the "ground rules." Determining what these ground rules are is a recurring theme in...