American Romanticism and the Popularization of Literary Education

American Romanticism, Education, and Social Reform explores the relationship between Romantic educational genres and nineteenth-century media and educational institutions, highlighting the ways in which the Transcendentalists engaged these institutions to realize their projects. It also charts the development from semi-public conversational platforms to increasingly public periodical culture and lecture platforms, leading to a reconsideration of Romanticism's meaning and function.

Format: Hardback
Length: 164 pages
Publication date: 15 March 2022
Publisher: Lexington Books

American Romanticism, education, and social reform: The Great Work of Mutual Education delves into three Romantic educational genres and their institutional and media contexts: conversation, literary journalism, and public lectures. These genres showcase the ways in which the Transcendentalists engaged with nineteenth-century media and educational institutions to realize their projects fully. The book also charts the development from the semi-public conversational platforms of Alcotts Temple School and Fullers conversation for women in the 1830s to the increasingly public periodical culture and lecture platforms of the 1840s and the early 1850s. This expansion led to a reevaluation of Romanticism's meaning and function.

During the 1830s and 1840s, Romantic literary practice underwent a redefinition. As the Romantics sought to institutionalize and popularize their educational ideals, they became increasingly involved in the institutional structures of the nineteenth-century educational field. However, they encountered exclusionary mechanisms that limited educational opportunities, just as they had to confront their own role in perpetuating social privilege within an educational system that reproduced it.

This exploration of Romantic education and its relationship to media and institutional contexts sheds light on the complex interplay between literature, education, and social reform during the Romantic period. It highlights the ways in which the Transcendentalists sought to transform the educational landscape and challenge the dominant societal norms, while also grappling with the challenges and limitations they faced in their efforts.

Weight: 395g
Dimension: 239 x 160 x 16 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781793649546