Issued: 09 / 2025
Publisher: Charles University, Faculty of Arts
Language: english
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ISSN: 2571-452X
156 pages
Romantic Shock and Surprise
The “shock of the new” is a phrase normally associated with Modernism but the aesthetics of shock has its roots in Romanticism, where notions of originality, novelty and surprise combined with the concept of the sublime to create compelling new descriptions of art’s disruptive powers. This special issue, guest edited by David Duff (Queen Mary University of London) and Laurent Folliot (Sorbonne Université) is based on an international symposium held in Paris in May 2025; it assesses the impact of this new cultural poetics, examining manifestations of aesthetic shock and surprise across a broad spectrum of Romantic literature from Britain and beyond.
Cover Design: Karolína Bendová
Cover Image: Johann Heinrich Füssli, Lady Macbeth somnambule (Shakespeare, Macbeth), © GrandPalaisRmn (musée du Louvre) / Hervé Lewandowski
Romantic Shock and Surprise
Introduction
David Duff – Laurent Folliot, p. 1-10 |
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Revolutionary Shocks in Translation: Political and Linguistic Change in the Discourse of Radical Translators (1789-1815)
Rosa Mucignat, p. 11-29 |
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“Deep the Raven Wades in Gore:” Death Songs and the Norse-Gothic Spectacle
Sharon Choe, p. 30-43 |
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Radical Reform and the Shock of the Past in Mary Robinson’s Vancenza
Eleanor Franzén, p. 44-57 |
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Romantic Shock and Industrial Catastrophe
Stephanie O’Rourke, p. 58-75 |
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Selling Shock at the Sans Pareil: The Early Shows of Jane and John Scott
Henry James Mason, p. 76-87 |
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“Marmoreality:” Re-Animating the Classical Body in the Romantic Present
Sophie Thomas, p. 88-103 |
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“Proging” the Darkness in John Clare’s “The Mouse’s Nest”
Markus Poetzsch, p. 104-113 |
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Shelley’s Alastor and the Poetics of Inflammatory Shock
Merrilees Roberts, p. 114-126 |
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“Surprised and Not Surprised:” Varieties of Astonishment in Austen’s Novels
Christopher R. Miller, p. 127-143 |
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Reviews
History and Literature in Northern Ireland: Critical Reflections on Their Joint Agency
Mária Kurdi, p. 144-149 |
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Breaking the Limits: Flann O’Brien’s Avant-garde Aesthetics
Einat Adar p. 150-152 |
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Notes on Contributors
p. 153-155 |
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