Book: Why the Romantics Matter

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Why the Romantics Matter

Peter Gay, Sterling Professor Emeritus of History

(Yale University Press)

In this book, Peter Gay reformulates the definition of romanticism and provides a fresh account of the achievements of romantic writers and artists in all media.

 

Gay asks the recurring questions about how to interpret romantic figures and their works: Who qualifies to be a romantic? What ties together romantic figures who practice in different countries, employ different media, even live in different centuries? How is modernism indebted to romanticism, if at all?

 


Guiding readers through the history of the romantic movement across Britain, France, Germany, and Switzerland, Gay argues that the best way to conceptualize romanticism is to accept its complicated nature and acknowledge that there is no “single basket” to contain it. Gay conceives of romantics in “families,” whose individual members share fundamental values but retain unique qualities. He concludes by demonstrating that romanticism extends well into the 20th century, where its deep and lasting impact may be measured in the work of writers such as T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf.

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