Living Forms: Romantics and the Monumental Figure

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State University of New York Press, 2012 M02 1 - 317 pages
Based on years of archival research in various British and American libraries, Living Forms examines the early nineteenth century's fascination with representations of the human form, particularly those from the past, which, having no adequate verbal explanatory text, are vulnerable to having their meanings erased by time. The author explores a variety of such representations and responses to them, including Coleridge's Shakespeare lectures, Hazlitt's essays on portraits, Keats's poems on mythic and sculpted figures, meditations by Byron's Childe Harold on the monuments of Italy, Felicia Hemans's verses on monuments to and by women, and Shelley's poems and letters on figures from Italy, Egypt, and other antique lands. Haley argues that in what has been called the "museum age," Romantics sought aesthetically to frame these figures as "living forms," mental images capable of realization in alternate modes or forms.
 

Contents

Thoughts on Nelsons Monument in St Pauls
1
1 Imaginary Museum
13
Peacock and Shelley
35
3 Coleridges Shakespeare Gallery
59
The Informing Principle
83
The Sleeping Children
111
Objects that Endure
129
Allegories for the Dead
147
Byron and Hemans
165
Shelleys Rome
193
10 Keatss Temples and Shrines
219
Conclusion
253
Notes
259
Works Cited
281
Index
299
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About the author (2012)

Bruce Haley is Professor of English at the University of Utah and author of The Healthy Body and Victorian Culture.

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