The Shelley-Byron Circle and the Idea of Europe

This book investigates how Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and their circle understood the idea of Europe. What geographical, cultural, and ideological concepts did they associate with the term? What does this tell us about politics and identity in early nineteenth-century Britain? In addressing these questions, Paul Stock challenges prevailing nationalist interpretations of Romanticism, but without falling prey to imprecise alternative notions of cosmopolitanism or "world citizenship." Instead, his book accounts for both the transnational and the local in Romantic writing, reassessing the period in terms of more complex, multi-layered identity politics. Front Matter....Pages i-ix Introduction....Pages 1-15 Front Matter....Pages 17-17 “Spain, Portugal, and Greece”: Byron on the Borders of Europe, 1809–11....Pages 19-37 “Repairing Shattered Thrones”: Post-Waterloo Europe and the Shelley-Byron Circle, June 1815–December 1816....Pages 39-63 “The Elysium of Europe”: Byron, Italy, and Europe, June 1817–July 1818....Pages 65-95 Front Matter....Pages 97-97 “Revolution in a European Nation”: The Shelley Circle, January 1817–March 1818....Pages 99-119 “From a Particular to a Universal”: The Shelley Circle, 1820–22....Pages 121-147 Front Matter....Pages 149-149 “A Congress for Outworn Europe”: Byron’s International Relations, October 1822–July 1823....Pages 151-173 “The Cause of Greece, the Cause of Europe”: The Byron Circle, July 1823–April 1824....Pages 175-197 Back Matter....Pages 199-264 "Paul Stock's carefully researched and subtly argued book offers a timely reevaluation of ideas of Europe in the Romantic period with particular reference to the writings of Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Stock's alertness to the complexity of European politics between 1809 and 1824 makes for a richly original assessment of their poetry. In addition, he invites scholars and critics of Romanticism to interrogate the terminology of nationalism and cosmopolitanism and demonstrates the rewards of confronting the diverse and often contradictory constructions of Europe in this period."--Michael Rossington, Senior Lecturer in Romantic Literature, Newcastle University, UK