Romanticism and the Forms of Ruin: Wordsworth, Coleridge, the Modalities of Fragmentation

Despite their hopeful aspirations to wholeness in life and spirit, Thomas McFarland contends, the Romantics were ruins amidst ruins,” fragments of human existence in a disintegrating world. Focusing on Wordsworth and Coleridge, Professor McFarland shows how this was true not only for each of these Romantics in particular but also for Romanticism in general.

Originally published in 1981.

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