Romantics, Rebels and Reactionaries: English Literature and Its Background, 1760-1830

Marilyn Butler is at least as great a literary historian as Ann Douglas, and that means as great as it gets. This book is... well, I do not say an object lesson in writing history, for it is inimitable. Dr.Butler's mind is vast: she can be just and sympathetic both to the stern Toryism of Jane Austen and to the extreme progressivism of Blake or Godwin. Her eye for the peculiarities of a period - even a period that lasted, perhaps, only a few months - is flawless. Her learning is enormous, yet worn lightly; like her Oxford predecessor C.S.Lewis, she can be said to have "read everything, and understood what [she] read". And because her knowledge is so broad, embracing political and social history on both Britain and the continent, she is able to indulge in the wholesale slaughter of sacred cows without being in the least affected, self-indulgent, or attention-seeking. It is simply her sacrifice to the truth. Dr.Butler on the real intellectual origins and significance of Wordsworth, for instance, is a marvellous liberation from generations of nonsense; as soon as one reads her analysis of his derivation from a specific and identifiable strand of eighteenth-century writing, one becomes conscious that this is the truth. And her style is worthy of her content: plain, profound, readable, with not one sentence in the whole book that does not advance the argument or shed further light. Dr.Butler is an Oxford Don, and this is the Oxford manner at its best - clear, unpretentious, comprehensive. This is a fabulously good book, that takes its place alongside Lewis' OXFORD HISTORY OF SIXTEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE, Auerbach's MIMESIS, Ann Douglas' TERRIBLE HONESTY and THE FEMINIZATION OF AMERICAN CULTURE as one of the finest pieces of literary history I have ever read.

There are books I try more than usual to have my own copy of. And this is one of them. A brilliant look into the world of English Romanticism. This is not just a literary sketch of the age and its spirit. As the title suggests, it's also about social interaction with the backdrop of the French Revolution. As Butler sees it, Edmund Burke's "Reflections" was "a polemic against intellectuals". And perhaps, Coleridge traveled to Germany to avoid conscription. The rise of German Romantik could have been caused by the social Angst especially among the young adults who ended up jobless in the wake of economic malaise... Butler's grip on all these details is so enticing you simply want to follow her until you see "The End." I have to make it known that this is no page-turner for everyone(despite the rolling but crisp, subtle but lucid sentences) but recommendably for those who have interest in how the period shaped the Romantic ideas and how the poets and novelists were all distinctively and creatively responsive. Still, it can also be read as a great introduction to the social and literary topography of the English Romanticism.

I have read this book in Chinese, and then I decide to get the English press to be my treature. It is very elegant and powerful, describing the history and making elegant, deep interpretation. I consider that it has better than the classic discourse "The Mirror and the Lamp" wrote by M. H. Abrams. The analysis and result from this book is a very important step forward to a splendid literary world.

A fascinating book! A must read for anyone that is interested in literary research of the period, or someone interested in learning more about their favorite author. An interesting book to just read on its own as well, since it covers a wide range of ideas and authors. Marilyn Butler's book is a must for the library of any student of literature.