In the late Romantic age, demands for political change converged with thinking about the end of the world. This book examines writings by Lord Byron, Mary Shelley and their circle that imagined the end, from poems by Byron that pictured fallen empires, sinking islands, and dying stars to the making and unmaking of populations in Frankenstein and The Last Man. These works intersected with and enclosed reflections upon brewing political changes. By imagining political dynasties, slavery, parliament, and English law reaching an end, writers challenged liberal visions of the political future that viewed the basis of governance as permanently settled. The prospect of volcanic eruptions and biblical deluges, meanwhile, pointed towards new political worlds, forged in the ruins of this one. These visions of coming to an end acquire added resonance in our own time, as political and planetary end-times converge once again.
| ISBN: | 9781009289207 |
| Publication date: | 13th April 2023 |
| Author: | John Owen Havard |
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 217 pages |
| Series: | Cambridge Studies in Romanticism |
| Genres: |
Literary studies: c 1600 to c 1800 Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 Literary studies: poetry and poets |