Dialectics of Improvement: Scottish Romanticism, 1786-1831

McKeever, G. L. (2020) Dialectics of Improvement: Scottish Romanticism, 1786-1831. Series: Edinburgh critical studies in romanticism. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh. ISBN 9781474441674

Abstract

Explores the nature of Scottish Romanticism through its relationship to improvement -Provides new insight into the concept of ‘improvement’ -Advances current thinking on Scottish Romanticism -Identifies how improvement was involved in key aesthetic innovations in the period -Includes case studies across poetry, short fiction, drama and the novel This book develops new insight into the idea of progress as improvement, as the basis for an approach to literary Romanticism in the Scottish context. With chapter case studies covering poetry, short fiction, drama and the novel, it examines a range of key writers: Robert Burns, James Hogg, Walter Scott, Joanna Baillie and John Galt. Improvement, the book argues, provided a dominant theme for literary texts in this period, just as it saturated the wider culture. It was also of real consequence to questions about what literature is and what it can do: a medium of secular belonging, a vehicle of indefinite exchange, an educational tool, and a theoretical guide to history.

• Item Type: Books
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Mckeever, Dr Gerard Lee
• Authors: McKeever, G. L.
• Subjects: D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain; P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General); P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN0080 Criticism; P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN0441 Literary History; P Language and Literature > PR English literature
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies > English Literature
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• ISBN: 9781474441674

Related URLs

• University of Glasgow Library Catalogue
• University of Glasgow Library Catalogue