It was only a matter of time before literary criticism caught up with speculative realism. And, counter-intuitive as it may sound, Romanticism is an ideal starting place. Evan Gottlieb's fine study shows how these two phenomena are not separate, rather they entail one another, just as object-oriented ontology has been arguing. In so doing, he breaks out of the well-worn contextualisation pathways along which recent scholarship on Romanticism has been travelling with all too much security. The Romantics would recognise themselves in Gottlieb's realist, magical mirror.'
Timothy Morton, Rita Shea Guffey Chair in English, Rice University

Speculative Realism in critical dialogue with British Romanticism

The practitioners of Speculative Realism vary significantly in their methodologies and theoretical frameworks, but are united by the conviction that humans can and must learn to displace themselves from the centre of their descriptions of the world at large. This position bears striking resemblances to the ideas and beliefs of the best-known British poets of the Romantic era (1780-1830), including William Wordsworth and Percy Shelley.

Romantic Realities uncovers parallels and echoes between the ideas of the most influential contemporary practitioners of Speculative Realism and the poetry and poetics of the most innovative Romantic poets. In doing so, Evan Gottlieb offers both a comprehensive introduction to the intellectual precedents and contemporary stakes of Speculative Realism and new understandings of the philosophical underpinnings and far-reaching insights of British Romanticism.

Evan Gottlieb is Professor of English at Oregon State University.

Cover image: Tummel Bridge, Perthshire, 1802-1803, Joseph Mallord William Turner, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.

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ISBN: [PPC] 978-0-7486-9140-1
ISBN: [cover] 978-0-7486-9141-8
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