This book visits the Romantic legacy that was central to the development of literature and culture from the 1830s onward. Although critical accounts have examined aspects of this long history of indebtedness, this is the first study to survey both Nineteenth and Twentieth century culture.

The authors consider the changing notion of Romanticism, looking at the diversity of its writers, the applicability of the term, and the ways in which Romanticism has been reconstituted. The chapters cover relevant historical periods and literary trends, including the Romantic Gothic, the Victorian era, and Modernism as part of a dialectical response to the Romantic legacy. Contributors also examine how Romanticism has been reconstituted within postmodern and postcolonial literature as both a reassessment of the Modernist critique and of the imperial contexts that have throughout this time-frame underpinned the Romantic legacy, bringing into focus the contemporaneity of Romanticism and its political legacy. This collection reveals the diversity and continuing relevance of the genre in new and exciting ways, offering insights into writers such as Browning, Ruskin, Pater, Wilde, Lewis, MacNeice, and Auster.

Taking into account key movements, such as late 19th century aestheticism, early 20th century Modernism, postmodernism and post-colonialism, the book shows how these developments were not only informed by Romanticism, but also revealed it to be a more plural and less stable concept.