Romanticism and the Poetics of Orientation - (Edinburgh Critical Studies in Romanticism) by Joey S Kim

About the Book

Confronts the racial and ethnic logics of the Oriental subject undergirding the development of Romantic poetics

Book Synopsis

What happens when we redirect our lines of reading along new lines, borders, and orientations--those that fail to fit neatly into the cardinal directions of North, South, East, and West? What is, who stands for, and where exactly is the "Orient" in British Romantic poetry? To where does the "Orient" lead? Romanticism and the Poetics of Orientation responds by tracing shifting orientations--cultural, geographical, aesthetic, racial, and gendered-- through Orientalist sites, subjects, and settings. Kim coins the term "poetics of orientation" to describe a poetics newly aware of cultural difference as a site of aesthetic contestation. She focuses on the contestation that occurs at the site of the lyric subject. A "poetics of orientation", rather than situating the lyric subject in assumed racial whiteness, repositions the lyric subject within discussions of Orientalism and racial formation, tracing the white supremacist logics that have for too long been dismissed as inessential or nonconsequential to Romantic studies.

Review Quotes

With Romanticism and the Poetics of Orientation, Joey S. Kim reminds us that we can't begin to understand the Romantics without attending to their eastward gaze, and that the critique of Orientalism is as urgent now as it was in Edward Said's day.--Manu Samriti Chander, Rutgers University