Counterfactual Romanticism

Extends counterfactual thought experiments from history and the social sciences to literary historiography, criticism and theory Counterfactual Romanticism reveals that that which did not happen is a necessary and revealing condition both of Romanticism itself and of our critical relationship with it. In this groundbreaking contribution to our understanding of Romantic-period literary production and of literary history, the ‘what if’?’ question is deployed throughout both as a tool of critical and theoretical analysis and as a creative prompt. Innovatively extending counterfactual thought experiments from the social sciences and history (where their value has long been recognised) to literary history, criticism and theory, the volume underscores how utterly contingent the Romanticism we have inherited actually is. The consequences of this realisation are game-changing and discipline-defining. Exploring – and performing – various modalities of counterfactual speculation and inquiry across a range of Romantic-period authors, genres and concerns, and identifying the Romantic credentials of counterfactual thought, the introduction and eleven essays offer a radically new purchase on literary history, on the relationship between history and fiction, on our historicist methods to date, and thus on the Romanticisms we (think we) have inherited. The result is a vitally defamiliarised sense of literary production and of literary time and space. Counterfactual Romanticism provides a thought-provoking method of re-reading literary pasts, recalibrating our own reading presents and pointing to more desirable futures; in the process, texts and reading practices are unfossilised and seen anew. To emancipate the counterfactual imagination and embrace the counterfactual turn and its provocations is to reveal the literary multiverse and quantum field within which our far-from-inevitable literary inheritance is located. Innovatively extending counterfactual thought experiments from history and the social sciences to literary historiography, criticism and theory, Counterfactual Romanticism reveals the ways in which the shapes of Romanticism are conditioned by that which did not come to pass. Exploring various modalities of counterfactual speculation and inquiry across a range of Romantic-period authors, genres and concerns, this collection offers a radical new purchase on literary history, on the relationship between history and fiction, and on our historicist methods to date – and thus on the Romanticisms we (think we) have inherited. Counterfactual Romanticism provides a ground-breaking method of re-reading literary pasts and our own reading presents; in the process, literary production, texts and reading practices are unfossilised and defamiliarised.