Romanticism and the Heritage of Rousseau

This is a forceful and thorough-going critique of recent thinking on Romanticism. Thomas McFarland reaches back to Rousseau to confront the misplaced emphases and serious misreadings of recent new historicist, post-structuralist, and feminist Romantic criticism. In its place, McFarland advocates an attention to the 'texture' of Romantic writing, in order to restore our sense of what Romanticism is, and to allow us to hear again its distinctive voice.