James Hogg and British Romanticism - by Meiko O'Halloran (Hardcover)

About the Book

"The book argues for Hogg's centrality to British Romanticism, resituating his work in relation to Romantic contemporaries who include Byron, Blake, Scott, Baillie, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, and Keats, and tracing his important inter-textual relationships to predecessors such as Spenser, Shakespeare, Johnson, Sterne, Gray, Collins, Macpherson, and Burns. Hogg creates a unique literary style which, the author argues, is best described as 'kaleidoscopic' in view of its similarities with David Brewster's kaleidoscope, invented in 1816. This ambitious and ground-breaking study not only sheds new light on Hogg's relationship with British Romanticism, but urges a re-thinking of Romanticism itself. It offers original new critical readings of a spectrum of Hogg's key works in a range of genres, demonstrating how his kaleidoscopic literary practice unsettles and reshapes our canonical understanding of the Romantic period and his place in it"--

Book Synopsis

This study argues for Hogg's centrality to British Romanticism, resituating his work in relation to many of his more famous Romantic contemporaries. Hogg creates a unique literary style which, the author argues, is best described as 'kaleidoscopic' in view of its similarities with David Brewster's kaleidoscope, invented in 1816.

Review Quotes

"James Hogg and British Romanticism makes an original and significant contribution to the ongoing conversation on how Hogg's works engage with and diverge from the artistic vision and practices of fellow Romantics. ... O'Halloran's pioneering and perceptive study is essential reading for those working on the life and writings of James Hogg and in the fields of Scottish Romanticism, British Romanticism, literary history, and reader response theory." (Holly Faith Nelson, The BARS Review, Issue 49, 2017)

About the Author

Meiko O'Halloran is Lecturer in Romantic Literature at Newcastle University, UK. She has published various articles and essays on aspects of Scottish and British Romanticism.