Introduction: Romanticizing The Object

Abstract

There are those who might regard the title of this book a contradiction. A fluffy view of Romanticism would deny any serious connection between dreamy discourse and an interest in the material objects of everyday experience. If there is any one notion at the heart of superficial musing about this movement, it is probably the idea that its discourse reflects no type of realism. If we could make a pilgrimage back to the time when Romantic norms and assumptions dominated Western culture, we might be most interested to learn how readers heard Romantic poetry, and what went on in their heads as Romanticism spoke itself out. And we would find that there is a “hard” quality to image and rhetoric, manifest all over Europe in its numerous languages, that could surprise us.