This book seeks to isolate the special factors that generate Wordsworth's greatness as a poet. Motivated by a dissatisfaction with the current trend toward New Historicism in Wordsworthian criticism, McFarland endeavors to qualify the social and political bias of that criticism by a renewed assertion of the poetic primacy of the personal and qualitative. Taking Marjorie Levinson's reading of "Tintern Abbey" as the book's starting point, McFarland sets forth a different way of approaching the poem, and then proceeds to an identification of "intensity" as the secret of Wordsworth's power. The permutations of that quality are illustrated by careful examinations of several other poems and Wordsworth's desiccation is seen as precisely the absence of intensity. McFarland then discusses the special way in which Wordsworth assumed the prophetic stance, which was essential to his poetic vision, and concludes with a discussion of The Borderers, which is shown to be a disposal chamber for the dark matter of the Wordsworthian cosmos.

William Wordsworth: Intensity and Achievement

Literature & Fiction

McFarland, Thomas

History & Criticism

Clarendon Press

Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition

Clarendon Pr

McFarland's newest book elucidates the philosophical and historical conception of liberty. Centering his argument on the Romantic exaltation of freedom, McFarland identifies freedom, along with love and religion, as one of the three chief transcendences by which humanity orients itself. He reveals, through an examination ranging from Shakespeare and Luther through Nietzsche and Wagner, both the reasons for the supreme valuation of freedom and the nature of the theoretical and practical obstacles that hinder its realization.

Paradoxes of Freedom: The Romantic Mystique of a Transcendence

British & Irish

Although the English essayists Lamb, Hazlitt, and De Quincey are not customarily examined in the context of European Romanticism, their shared connection with the intellectual upheaval of that movement is undeniable. McFarland's study is the first to consider the essayists in this light, relating them to the larger engagements of their age. As Romantic Cruxes reveals, each writer was a figure deeply embattled amid the disruptions and accumulating stresses that defined Romanticism; each was more intense, darker, and more symbolic of larger situations in human experience than received opinion would have it. And each essayist projected his personality and experience into idiosyncratic statement that has won its author a lasting place in the pantheon of cultural achievement. Unlike most studies of these authors, which tend toward straightforward biography, simple appreciation, or narrowly historical treatments, this book illuminates both their statement and their achievement in the fullest possible terms.

Romantic Cruxes: The English Essayists and the Spirit of the Age

Oxford University Press

This new book by a leading scholar presents a timely and thorough-going critique of recent thinking on Romanticism. Beginning with the conviction that Rousseau may well have been the most important cultural figure of the last quarter millennium, Thomas McFarland confronts the misplaced emphases and serious misreadings of recent new historicist, post-structuralist, and feminist Romantic criticism. Using Rousseau as a guide and influence, McFarland looks at the work of six important scholars--including Jerome McGann, Marilyn Butler, and Paul deMan--and argues that the "new orthodoxy" is signally unable to perform the ultimate task of criticism: to discern quality . In its place, McFarland advocates attention to the "texture" of the cultural fabric of Romanticism, in order to restore our sense of what Romanticism is, and to allow us to hear again its distinctive voice.

Romanticism and the Heritage of Rousseau

This book surveys the poetic endeavor of Keats and urges that his true poetry is uniquely constituted by being uttered through three artificial masks, rather than through the natural voice of his quotidian self. The first mask is formed by the attitudes and reality that ensue from a conscious commitment to the identity of poet as such. The second, called here the "Mask of Camelot," takes shape from Keats's acceptance and compelling use of the vogue for medieval imaginings that was sweeping across Europe in his time. The third, the "Mask of Hellas," eventuated from Keats's enthusiastic immersion in the rising tide of Romantic Hellenism. Keats's great achievement, the book argues, can only be ascertained by means of a resuscitation of the defunct critical category of "genius," as that informs his use of the masks. To validate this category, the volume is concerned throughout with the necessity of discriminating the truly poetic from the meretricious in Keats's endeavor. The Mask of Keats thus constitutes a criticism of and rebuke to the deconstructive approach, which must treat all texts and must entirely forgo the conception of quality.

The Mask of Keats: The Endeavour of a Poet

Despite their hopeful aspirations to wholeness in life and spirit, Thomas McFarland contends, the Romantics were ruins amidst ruins," fragments of human existence in a disintegrating world. Focusing on Wordsworth and Coleridge, Professor McFarland shows how this was true not only for each of these Romantics in particular but also for Romanticism in general.
Originally published in 1981.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Romanticism and the Forms of Ruin: Wordsworth, Coleridge, the Modalities of Fragmentation (Princeton Legacy Library)

Dramas & Plays

Princeton University Press

Despite their hopeful aspirations to wholeness in life and spirit, Thomas McFarland contends, the Romantics were ruins amidst ruins," fragments of human existence in a disintegrating world. Focusing on Wordsworth and Coleridge, Professor McFarland shows how this was true not only for each of these Romantics in particular but also for Romanticism in general.Originally published in 1981.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Despite their hopeful aspirations to wholeness in life and spirit, Thomas McFarland contends, the Romantics were ruins amidst ruins," fragments of human existence in a disintegrating world. Focusing on Wordsworth and Coleridge, Professor McFarland shows how this was true not only for each of these Romantics in particular but also for Romanticism in general.Originally published in 1981.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Shakespeare's Pastoral Comedy

The University of North Carolina Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by McFarland, Thomas. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by McFarland, Thomas

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by McFarland, Thomas. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

William Wordsworth: Intensity and Achievement

Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition

Paradoxes of Freedom: The Romantic Mystique of a Transcendence

Romantic Cruxes: The English Essayists and the Spirit of the Age

Romanticism and the Heritage of Rousseau

The Mask of Keats: The Endeavour of a Poet

Romanticism and the Forms of Ruin: Wordsworth, Coleridge, the Modalities of Fragmentation (Princeton Legacy Library)

Romanticism and the Forms of Ruin: Wordsworth, Coleridge, the Modalities of Fragmentation (Princeton Legacy Library)

Romanticism and the Forms of Ruin: Wordsworth, Coleridge, the Modalities of Fragmentation (Princeton Legacy Library)

Shakespeare's Pastoral Comedy