ISBN: 0312234120 9780312234126

Category: Literary Criticism / General

Page count: 223

Why are there so few "happily ever afters" in the Romantic-period verse romance? Why do so many poets utilize the romance and its parts to such devastating effect? Why is gender so often the first victim? <i>The Romantic Paradox</i> investigates the prevalence and death in the poetic romances of the Della Cruscans, Coleridge, Keats, Mary Robinson, Felicia Hemans, Letitia Landon, and Byron, and posits that understanding the romance and its violent tendencies is vital to understanding Romanticism itself.<br>