Pub: Michael N. Forster, AFTER HERDER.

Forster, Michael N.  After Herder: Philosophy of Language in the German Tradition.  Oxford: OUP, 2010.

Philosophy of language has for some time now been the very core of the discipline of philosophy. But where did it begin? Frege has sometimes been identified as its father, but in fact its origins lie much further back, in a tradition that arose in eighteenth-century Germany. Michael Forster explores that tradition. He also makes a case that the most important thinker within that tradition was J. G. Herder. It was Herder who established such fundamental principles in the philosophy of language as that thought essentially depends on language and that meaning consists in the usage of words. It was he who on that basis revolutionized the theory of interpretation ("hermeneutics") and the theory of translation. And it was he who played the pivotal role in founding such whole new disciplines concerned with language as anthropology and linguistics. In the course of developing these historical points, this book also shows that Herder and his tradition are in many ways superior to dominant trends in more recent philosophy of language: deeper in their principles and broader in their focus.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

PART I: HERDER

1: Johann Gottfried Herder
2: Herder’s Philosophy of Language, Interpretation, and Translation: Three Fundamental Principles
3: Gods, Animals, and Artists: Some Problem Cases in Herder’s Philosophy of Language
4: Herder’s Importance as a Philosopher
5: Herder on Genre
6: Herder and the Birth of Modern Anthropology
7: The Liberal Temper in Classical German Philosophy: Freedom of Thought and Expression

PART II: HAMANN

8: Johann Georg Hamann
9: Hamann’s Seminal Importance for the Philosophy of Language?

PART III: SCHLEIERMACHER

10: Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher
11: Schleiermacher’s Hermeneutics: Some Problems and Solutions
12: Herder, Schleiermacher, and the Birth of Foreignizing Translation

For further information, visit: http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199228119.do.

"The Relevance of Romanticism," Greater Philadelphia Philosophy Consortium (GPPC), Villanova University, April 16-17, 2010.

Update: The programme is here: http://www.villanova.edu/artsci/assets/documents/philosophy/TheRelevanceofRomanticismProgramFeb2010.pdf. Original Post (August 27, 2009): Keynote Speakers:

• Manfred Frank, Universität Tübingen
• Frederick Beiser, Syracuse University

With the recent increase of interest in philosophical romanticism, it seems appropriate to ask the question, why romanticism now. What were the philosophical questions and concerns of Romanticism, and why do they seem particularly apt for contemporary philosophical and non-philosophical discussions? What is the value of Romanticism as a philosophical movement, both within the history of philosophy, and for philosophy today? Is Romanticism a fundamentally distinct movement, which offers something to the history of philosophy or to contemporary philosophical discussions, which other movements (Idealism, for example) do not? Can we speak of “philosophical Romanticism” at all? What is philosophical about Romanticism? The conference is dedicated to raising and attempting to answer some of these questions, in light of the work of the two keynote speakers, Manfred Frank and Frederick Beiser. We are seeking papers which address the theme of philosophical Romanticism and its relevance, from a historical or a contemporary perspective. Interdisciplinary approaches to the relationship between philosophical Romanticism and other disciplines (art, science, literature, theology) are also welcome. Papers should exhibit some familiarity with the works of Manfred Frank and/or Frederick Beiser, and, to some degree, engage with their contributions to the field. In addition to the keynote addresses, Manfred Frank and Frederick Beiser will participate in a roundtable discussion with the conference participants. Submissions: Please submit a completed paper (3,500 words) no later than January 31, 2010 to dalia.nassar@villanova.edu. Papers should be prepared for blind-review. Submissions should be in .doc or .pdf format. Questions: contact Dalia Nassar at dalia.nassar@villanova.edu.

Hay, Katia D. "August Wilhelm von Schlegel." STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY January 14, 2010.

A.W. Schlegel (Sept. 8, 1767, Hanover – May 12, 1845, Bonn) was a German essayist, translator and poet. Although the philosophical dimension and profundity of his writings remain underrated, he is considered to be one of the founders of the German Romantic Movement, as well as one of the most prominent disseminators of its philosophy, not only in Germany but also abroad and, most notably, in Britain. Schlegel had an outstanding knowledge of art, history, literature, architecture, anthropology and foreign languages, which made him a decisive figure in the early development of comparative literature and modern linguistics, and with the creation of the journal Indische Bibliothek, he inaugurated the domain of Sanskrit studies in Germany. He also wrote poetry and drama; but he is mostly known for his critical writings and his brilliant translations of William Shakespeare.

Read the rest here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schlegel-aw/.

"The Romantic Movement and Rock Music." THE PHILOSOPHER'S ZONE January 2, 2010.

Romantic ideas and philosophy live on in certain strains of modern rock music, according to this week's guest, Craig Schuftan, author of Hey Nietzsche - Leave Them Kids Alone. David Bowie, The Cure, The Smiths, Queen, and more contemporary bands like My Chemical Romance and Weezer share some seriously Romantic tendencies with people like Byron, Schopenhauer, Wagner and even Nietzsche - and it's not just because they all viewed the world through the same gloomy prism. . . .

Download the podcast here: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/philosopherszone/stories/2010/2759561.htm.

Menon, Suresh. "Poet of the Willow: Archie Jackson, 1909-1933." CRICINFO September 6, 2009.

Frith, David. Archie Jackson: the Keats of Cricket. London: Pavillion, 1987.

Comparisons with music seem to fit cricket better than comparisons with literature. Or perhaps we have been led to believe this is so by the writings of Neville Cardus, who thought nothing of grabbing his readers with: "And Spooner's cricket in spirit was kin with sweet music, and the singing of Elizabeth Schumann in Johann Strauss." Somehow it has always seemed more appropriate to compare a genius cricketer to Mozart, say, than to Shakespeare; even established literary figures when they occasionally wrote on the game tended to look outside their stream for analogies and comparisons. JB Priestley, for example, in his study of Garry Sobers did not see fit to bring Shakespeare into the equation as an allrounder.

So it was with some surprise that I read the subtitle of a biography of Archie Jackson. The surprise vanished when I read the author's name - David Frith, who, though certainly more literary than musical, is without the need to impress by dipping into the cauldron of cricket clichés. The subtitle? "The Keats of Cricket."

It is superbly apposite, conjuring up images that represent talent, suffering, delicacy, romance, tuberculosis and untimely death. Keats died at 25. His grave proclaims, "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." Jackson was 23 when he died, and Frith's attempt to ensure that his name is not merely writ in water is an admirable one. . . .

Read the rest here: http://www.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/418283.html.

Thomas, Louisa. "Their Love is Alive." NEWSWEEK September 4, 2009.

It began as a game to pass the time while the rain fell and lightning struck. Visiting Switzerland in June 1816, a small group—young and rivalrous, amorous and ever so literary—agreed to a ghost-story-writing contest. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, just 18, could come up with nothing at first. Then she had a nightmare—a walking corpse, glimmering yellow eyes. It delighted her. The next day, she announced to the others that she had imagined a story. Frankenstein was born. Two years later Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus was published anonymously. Readers immediately wondered about the author's identity. Some guessed it was the poet Percy Shelley, who had written the novel's preface. Those who knew that the author was Percy's (by then) wife, Mary Shelley, were amazed. Mary later said that she was constantly asked how she, "then a young girl, came to think of, and to dilate upon, so very hideous an idea?" In an introduction to a revised 1831 edition, she told the Gothic tale of the ghost-story contest. (Percy, Lord Byron, John Polidori, and Mary's stepsister, Claire, were the others present.) As for Percy, she "certainly did not owe the suggestion of one incident, nor scarcely of one train of feeling" in the book, but she did depend upon his encouragement and more. "Its several pages speak of many a walk, many a drive, and many a conversation, when I was not alone." The question of whether Mary alone wrote the novel, however, would not die. . . .

http://www.newsweek.com/2009/09/03/their-love-is-alive.html

Klavan, Andrew. "Romanticon." CITY JOURNAL 19.3 (2009).

It seems to me that the last several decades in America have been a weird echo of the decades in Europe around the coming of the nineteenth century—and that no figure can serve as a better guide to both wisdom and error than William Wordsworth, one of the greatest of the British Romantic poets and, in many ways, the very model of a modern neoconservative, defending the West’s liberal tradition against radicalism. My argument in brief is this. The French Revolution was the historical tragedy that recurred as farce in America’s 1960s. Cranky-cons like myself tend, when thinking of the Revolution, to skip right ahead to the bloody parts, like a 12-year-old watching Friday the 13th on DVD. But the French overthrow of what Wordsworth called “the meagre, stale, forbidding ways of custom, law and statute” provided young Europeans with the same sort of goose of utopian hope that the Age of Aquarius gave the young here. “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,” Wordsworth famously recalled in later years. “But to be young was very heaven!” What aging boomer boring his grandchildren with tales of Woodstock wouldn’t say much the same? The young and blissful Wordsworth had a good view of the action. . . .

Read the rest here: http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_3_wordsworth.html.

Kirsch, Adam. "What's Romantic about Science? When Science Became a Source of Sublime Terror." SLATE MAGAZINE July 20, 2009.

Holmes, Richard. The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science. New York: Pantheon, 2009. Richard Holmes explores an early-19th-century period of terrific—and often terrified—excitement about science, of marvelous discoveries that raised humble experimenters to the rank of national heroes. Holmes' subjects—including astronomer William Herschel, chemist Humphry Davy, and explorer Mungo Park—were household names in England, but their discoveries were by no means always welcome ones. Herschel's observation of the stars, for instance, showed that the Milky Way was just one of a vast number of galaxies that were constantly being born, aging, and dying. The Milky Way, Herschel warned, "cannot last forever." It followed, as Holmes writes, that "our solar system, our planet, and hence our whole civilization would have an ultimate and unavoidable end." For the first time, the apocalypse was not a matter of religious faith but of demonstrated scientific fact. Herschel's discoveries represent one face of what Holmes calls, loosely but suggestively, Romantic science. The phrase sounds like an oxymoron, as Holmes acknowledges: "Romanticism as a cultural force is generally regarded as intensely hostile to science, its ideal of subjectivity eternally opposed to that of scientific objectivity. But I do not believe this was always the case, or that the terms are so mutually exclusive. The notion of wonder seems to be something that once united them, and can still do so." Contemplating the immensity and strangeness of the universe could produce the same feeling of sublime terror that Coleridge strove for in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner or that Wordsworth evokes in parts of his autobiographical epic The Prelude. In Keats' sonnet "On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer," the poet compares his feeling of literary discovery with that of "some watcher of the skies/ When a new planet swims into his ken"; as Holmes explains, this was an allusion to Herschel's discovery of the planet Uranus in 1781, one of the stories told at length in The Age of Wonder. . . . Read the whole review here: http://www.slate.com/id/2222360/pagenum/all.

Three Reviews of Edna O'Brien's BYRON IN LOVE.

O'Brien, Edna. Byron in Love: a Short Daring Life. New York: Norton, 2009.

Pollitt, Katha. "Lord Byron's Great Insight." Slate Magazine July 13, 2009.  Not many writers furnish enough material for a biography focused entirely on their love lives. In his short life (1788-1824), George Gordon, Lord Byron, managed to cram in just about every sort of connection imaginable—unrequited pinings galore; affairs with aristocrats, actresses, servants, landladies, worshipful fans, and more in almost as many countries as appear on Don Giovanni's list; plus countless one-offs with prostitutes and purchased girls; a brief, disastrous marriage; and an incestuous relationship with his half-sister. And that's just the women! It's a wonder he found the time, considering everything else on his plate. He composed thousands of pages of dazzling poetry, traveled restlessly on the continent and in the Middle East, maintained complex relationships with friends and hangers-on, wrote letters and kept diaries and read books constantly, boxed and took fencing lessons and swam, drank (prodigiously), suffered bouts of depression and paranoia and physical ill-health, and, in his later years, joined in Italian and Greek liberation struggles. Just tending the menagerie that he liked to have about him—monkeys, parrots and macaws, dogs, a goat, a heron, even, while he was a student at Cambridge, a bear—would have driven a lesser man to distraction. . . . (Read the rest here: http://www.slate.com/id/2222669/pagenum/all)

Shakespeare, Nicholas. "Byron in Love by Edna O’Brien - Review." Telegraph January 15, 2009. Books on Byron tend to resemble the contraptions clamped to the poet’s deformed right foot by a long line of questionable doctors: they twist him into shapes that must make his spirit hobble. The “terrible step” his wife would hear from her bed, clomping into his half-sister’s bedroom below, has reverberated from the moment of his death in a dismal Greek swamp, covered in leeches and bandages. In Edna O’Brien’s words: “Books of gossip, smut, malice, lies and 'intrinsic nothings’, as Thomas Love Peacock called them, were soon to proliferate.” Even his friends, as Byron put it, “Boswellised” him, his last true (female) love, the Countess Guiccioli, communicating with him in a séance so that she might write her account of their life together in Italy. “So why another book on Byron?” To O’Brien, answering her own question, he was “the first and ongoing celebrity” with “a mystery and a magnetism that defy time”. Byron in Love is the Irish author’s response to the remark that first attracted her to him, made by Lady Blessington, that Byron was “the most extraordinary and terrifying person” she had met. Reading this compact and hugely enjoyable retelling of his life, one feels the inevitability of the biographer and her subject. (Read the rest here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/4246950/Byron-in-Love-by-Edna-OBrien---review.html)

Shilling, Jane. "Byron in Love by Edna O'Brien." Times January 16, 2009. One may consider it a stroke of genius, then, that a commissioning editor at Weidenfeld & Nicolson should have come up with the wheeze of asking Edna O'Brien, a novelist famous for writing about sex, to undertake a short biography of Lord Byron, a poet famous for doing it. The result is Byron in Love, an account of the poet's emotional life, which is to say (for Byron, like his fellow artists of the Romantic movement, made little if any distinction between the art, the sensibility and the life) an account of his life. There is, of course, no shortage of these: “a legion of books, treatises, essays and biographies - scholarly, probing, affectionate, discursive, titillating, scurrilous and fantastical”, writes O'Brien in her introduction, asking rhetorically, “So why another book on Byron?” and immediately answering her own question. Her interest was whetted years ago, she explains, when she read a remark by Byron's friend, Lady Blessington, that the poet was “the most extraordinary and terrifying person [she had] ever met”. Also, “Writers writing about other artists has always appealed to me - Rilke on Rodin, addressing that mysterious mediation between the life and the art. Virginia Woolf's The Common Reader, providing those quick, deft glimpses that give us the human quotidian and a whiff of the genius within.” . . . (Read the rest here: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_reviews/article5529571.ece.)

"The Romantic Movement and Rock Music." THE PHILOSOPHER'S ZONE (AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING NETWORK) June 20, 2009.

Romantic ideas and philosophy live on in certain strains of modern rock music, according to this week's guest, Craig Schuftan, author of Hey Nietzsche - Leave Them Kids Alone. David Bowie, The Cure, The Smiths, Queen, and more contemporary bands like My Chemical Romance and Weezer share some seriously Romantic tendencies with people like Byron, Schopenhauer, Wagner and even Nietzsche - and it's not just because they all viewed the world through the same gloomy prism. Listen here: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/philosopherszone/stories/2009/2598724.htm.

CFP: "Hamann and the Tradition," CUNY, Hunter College, March 20-21, 2009.

Update 2: Notes on the conference by Jonathan Gray are available here: http://jonathangray.org/2009/06/10/the-magus-in-new-york/. Update: The conference homepage, including the programme, is here: http://sapientia.hunter.cuny.edu/~german/Conf%20Home.html. Original Post (August 27, 2008): Recent years have witnessed a resurgence of scholarly interest in the work of Johann Georg Hamann, an interest which is spreading among scholars of world literature, European history, philosophy, theology, and religious studies. New translations of work by and about Hamann are appearing, as are a number of books and articles on Hamann’s aesthetics, theories of language and sexuality, and unique place in Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment thought. As such, the time has come to reexamine, in light of recent work, the legacy of Hamann’s writings, which have influenced such diverse thinkers as J. G. von Herder, F. H. Jacobi, J. W. von Goethe, G. W. F. Hegel, Søren Kierkegaard, and Walter Benjamin, to name only an obvious few. We invite papers which investigate or problematize in new ways any underappreciated aspect of Hamann’s impact across the centuries, be it upon a thinker or work, a historical tradition, or even an entire branch of knowledge. Especially welcome are papers which promote dialogue among the diverse disciplines to which Hamann’s work speaks. All conference papers should be delivered in English. Please send a one-page abstract by October 1, 2008 to the conference organizer: Lisa Marie Anderson, Assistant Professor Department of German, Hunter College lisa.anderson@hunter.cuny.edu Keynote Speaker: Oswald Bayer, Systematic Theology, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Author of Vernunft ist Sprache: Hamanns Metakritik Kants; Johann Georg Hamann: Der hellste Kopf seiner Zeit; Zeitgenosse im Widerspruch: Johann Georg Hamann als Radikaler Aufklärer Confirmed Speakers: John Betz, After Enlightenment: The Post-Secular Vision of J. G. Hamann Gwen Griffith-Dickson, Johann Georg Hamann’s Relational Metacriticism Kenneth Haynes, Hamann: Writings on Philosophy and Language Manfred Kuehn, Immanuel Kant: A Biography; Scottish Common Sense in Germany 1768-1800 Johannes von Lüpke, Director, Internationales Hamann-Kolloquium Katie Terezakis, The Immanent Word: The Turn to Language in German Philosophy 1759-1801

Pub: Gjesdal, Kristin. "Georg Friedrich Philipp von Hardenberg [Novalis]." STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY May 21, 2009.

The philosophical impact of early German romanticism in general and Georg Philipp Friedrich von Hardenberg (Novalis) in particular has typically been traced back to a series of fragments and reflections on poetry, art, and beauty. Moreover, his name has been associated with an aestheticization of philosophy, an illegitimate valorizing of the medieval, and a politically reactionary program. This view of von Hardenberg, however, is to a large extent rooted in the image created posthumously by his increasingly conservative friends within the romantic circle. Furthermore, von Hardenberg's philosophical reputation has been shaped by his critics, the most prominent of whom was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. In spite of his death at 28, von Hardenberg (1772–1801) left behind a complex philosophical legacy that encompasses discussions of subjectivity and self-consciousness, issues in epistemology, moral theory, political philosophy, problems of interpretation, philosophy of history, philosophy of religion, the proto-existentialist experience of the finality of human life, as well as a significant contribution to aesthetics and philosophy of art. While von Hardenberg is best known for his literary production—including the prose poem Hymns to the Night (1800) and the unfinished novels The Apprentice from Said and Heinrich von Ofterdingen (both published in 1802)—this overview focuses on the argumentative presuppositions for and systematic implications of von Hardenberg's philosophical work (without thereby suggesting that his philosophy should be perceived as entirely separate from his poetic production). . . .

Read the rest here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/novalis/.

"Blanchot romantique," Maison Française d’Oxford, April 20-21, 2009.

Keynote speakers: Christophe Bident, Leslie Hill, Michael Holland. Marking the first major event on Maurice Blanchot (1907-2003) to take place in the UK in the past fifteen years, this conference will bring together some of the most eminent scholars in the field, as well as a number of postgraduates both from the UK and abroad, to address the ways in which Blanchot’s work engages with the Romantic legacy and to explore how this engagement continues to inform contemporary debates on literature, philosophy, and politics. The aim of ‘Blanchot romantique’ is at least twofold: (1) to broaden our understanding of the singular place that Romanticism holds in Blanchot’s writings, and (2) to give a major assessment of his contribution to thinking aesthetics in the wake of Romanticism. At decisive moments in his work, Blanchot engages with a variety of key Romantic notions, including subjectivity and experience, inspiration and imagination, irony and the sublime, the fragment and the total work, violence and revolution. Romanticism thus provides us with a crucial set of concepts to approach the literary, philosophical and political challenge that Blanchot’s writing represents. From a literary perspective, Blanchot offers decisive readings of a number of figures associated with Romanticism and post-Romanticism, both in the French and German traditions (among others, Goethe, Jean-Paul, Hölderlin, Rilke, Sade, Lautréamont, Nerval, Baudelaire, Mallarmé). These readings inform not only his criticism but also his own practice as a writer. From a philosophical and/or theoretical perspective, his thought engages with a number of key eighteenth- and nineteenth-century thinkers (Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Nietzsche), as well as with the leading figures behind the Athenaeum (Novalis, the Schlegels), whose legacies are associated, directly or indirectly, with Romantic thought. The twentieth century continued to reflect upon the question of Romanticism, in particular at the intersection between literature, philosophy, and theory. In this light, the conference will examine Blanchot comparatively with other key critical interlocutors of the twentieth century such as Martin Heidegger, Albert Béguin, Walter Benjamin, Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, and Jean-Luc Nancy. Finally, from a political viewpoint, Blanchot’s work opens new perspectives on Romantic and post-Romantic questions of revolution, violence, history, commitment, and community. His interpretation of the French Revolution and of the May ’68 events are crucial in this regard. PRELIMINARY PROGRAMME: ROMANTIC LEGACIES (I): THEORY Christophe Bident, Université de Paris-Diderot – Paris VII ‘Le neutre est-il une notion romantique?’ Yves Gilonne, University of Nottingham ‘L’auto-réflexivité du Sublime’ Maebh Long, University of Durham ‘A Step Askew: Ironic Parabasis in Blanchot’ Gisèle Berkman, Collège International de Philosophie, Paris ‘Blanchot et le Romantisme allemand: poétique, théorie, pratique’ ROMANTIC LEGACIES (II): PRAXIS Michael Holland, St. Hugh’s College, Oxford ‘Blanchot and Jean-Paul’ Jérémie Majorel, Université de Paris-Diderot – Paris VII ‘Blanchot, narrateur de Mallarmé’ ROMANTIC CONVERSATIONS IN THE 20th CENTURY Jake Wadham, St. Edmund Hall, Oxford ‘Blanchot, Benjamin, and the Absence of the Work’ Hector Kollias, King’s College London ‘Unworking Irony’s Work: Blanchot and de Man as readers of the Athenaeum’ Ian Maclachlan, Merton College, Oxford ‘Blanchot, Derrida, and the Romantic Imagination’ ROMANTIC FRAGMENTATIONS Leslie Hill, University of Warwick ‘Blanchot and Translation’ Patrick ffrench, King’s College London ‘The Fragment, the Disaster, and Melancholy’ POLITICAL ROMANTICISM Ian James, Downing College, Cambridge ‘Naming the Nothing: Nancy and Blanchot on Community’ Martin Crowley, Queens’ College, Cambridge ‘Even now, now, very now’ Parham Shahrjerdi, Université de Paris-Diderot – Paris VII ‘Terreur et révolution’ For further information, contact: John McKeane: john.mckeane@st-annes.ox.ac.uk Hannes Opelz: hdo20@cam.ac.uk (Via http://www.continental-philosophy.org/.)

Howard, Jennifer. "The Birth of FRANKENSTEIN." CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION November 7, 2008.

Almost from the moment that it was published anonymously on New Year's Day 1818, Frankenstein had readers and critics arguing over its origins. Early rumor held that it wasn't Mary Shelley but her husband, the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who deserved the credit. (Or the blame; some early readers were outraged by the novel's idea that a man could play God and create life.) Even after the couple confirmed Mary's authorship and her name appeared on new editions in 1823 and 1831, some critics held on to the idea that Percy was the guiding spirit behind Frankenstein. A few still do. As late as last year, an independent scholar named John Lauritsen dismissed Mary Shelley's claim to authorship. In The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein (Pagan Press), Lauritsen argued that "an uneducated, teenaged girl" could not have written the book but that her husband — "one of the greatest poets and prose stylists in the English language" — could have. Lauritsen is an outlier among Shelley scholars, almost all of whom consider Frankenstein to be Mary's work. They also agree that Percy was present at the creation, helping Mary nurture her nightmare inspiration as it grew into a full-blown novel. All the evidence — manuscripts, letters, journals, the Shelleys' own testimony — places Percy at the creative scene. (It's known, for instance, that he embellished the ending and made it, at least in some readers' minds, more melodramatic.) That's where the debate heats up. How much of a participant was Mary Shelley's better half? Should Percy be considered a co-creator of her masterpiece? Was he a co-opter of her genius? Was he Mary's Svengali, her Max Perkins, or merely a good copy editor? Thanks to the dogged textual work of a scholar named Charles E. Robinson, a professor of English at the University of Delaware, readers will now be able to see for themselves what Mary wrote before she turned it over to Percy's editorial ministrations. Last month, the Bodleian Library published Robinson's edition of The Original Frankenstein, a version of the novel that probably comes as close as it's possible to get to the draft that Mary first handed Percy to read. . . . Read the rest here: http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i11/11b01201.htm. See also Lynda Pratt's "Who Wrote the Original Frankenstein?" TLS October 29, 2008 (http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article5035717.ece).

Turley, Richard Maggraf. "Second Only to Byron." TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT September 3, 2008.

In July 1820, Keats’s career was in the doldrums. Having pinned all his hopes for “living by the pen” on the delayed Lamia, he was dismayed when the collection, despite containing tours de force such as “Ode to a Nightingale” and “The Eve of St Agnes”, appeared to mixed or hostile reviews. For most Romantic readers, Keats remained the jejune, justifiably sidelined author of the biggest flop of 1818, Endymion. In August, however, a beacon arrived in the form of an unattributed review in Constable’s Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany, with a second instalment following in October. Written by an “outside contributor” with the “avowed purpose of gaining Keats a larger readership”, as Donald H. Reiman points out in his standard edition of Romantic reviews, the mysterious critique pronounced Keats a “poet of high and undoubted powers”. “If this be not poetry”, the reviewer declared, defiantly quoting excerpts from the vilified Endymion, while promising in the same breath a full-length review of Lamia, “we do not know what is”. The public relations exercise was effective, and marked the point at which the tide of negative reviews began to turn in Keats’s favour. . . .

Read the rest here: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article4666844.ece.

Kneller, Jane. "Review of Novalis' NOTES FOR A ROMANTIC ENCYCLOPEDIA." NDPR (September 2008).

Novalis. Notes for a Romantic Encyclopaedia. Trans. and ed. David W. Wood. Albany: SUNY Press, 2007. David Wood's translation of the unfinished collection of notes that Novalis (pseudonym of Friederich von Hardenberg) intended as "material for an encyclopedics" is a welcome contribution to the growing literature in English on the philosophy of the early German romantics. The fact that these are "unfinished" notes should by no means deter the reader. This is an important set of short essays, aphorisms, fragments and musings on the sciences and the nature of systematic knowledge. In true early romantic fashion it is wide-ranging in content and style, touching on topics from art to experimental method in the sciences, from philosophy and religion to butter softening, colic, gout, fever and the symbolism of human dress. Taken as a whole, the notes represent the beginnings of a philosophical experiment that, if successful, would support the hypothesis that a unified methodology is possible for the arts and sciences. Novalis' vision was that this could only be carried out successfully by philosophers who were both scientists and poets, and who could "treat the sciences both scientifically and poetically." The Notes for a Romantic Encyclopaedia, or the Allgemeine Brouillon as the editor of the 1929 German edition called it (literally, "general rough draft"), is a preliminary gathering of materials that Hardenberg hoped to pull together into a book that would embody the ideal practices of any science: "All good researchers -- physicians, observers and thinkers, proceed like Copernicus -- They turn the data and methods around, to see whether or not they fit better this way" (92, #517). It was to be a book that would model the artistry, or at least the aesthetic dimension, of scientific practice. What Novalis called the "magic wand of analogy" is at work throughout these notes. Musical terminology is used to illuminate physiological claims, chemical terms describe religion, etc. This book deserves to be read not simply for its many poetic moments ("Philosophy is really homesickness -- the desire to be everywhere at home" (155, #857)) but for the overall vision that gives the poetry its theoretical punch. That lovely characterization of philosophy, for instance, when read in the context of the surrounding material (it follows a comment on the nature of pain and pleasure, motion and interruption, and the feeling of powerlessness), is presented as a medical diagnosis: Philosophy is a symptom of human vulnerability. . . . Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=14068.

Kinnaman, Ted. "Review of J. G. Hamann's WRITINGS ON PHILOSOPHY AND LANGUAGE." NDPR (August 2008).

Hamann, Johann Georg. Writings on Philosophy and Language. Ed. Kenneth Haynes. Cambridge: CUP, 2007. Although little known among English-speaking philosophers, the 18th-century German Johann Georg Hamann can be credited with originating a number of the most important ideas in the Continental tradition of philosophy of the last two centuries. His early criticism of Kant (for example, in the "Metacritique on the Purism of Reason") introduces the idea that reason is indistinguishable from the particular language in which one reasons, and thus shot through with the same thoroughgoing contingency. His use of pseudonyms and an opaque writing style to unsettle the relation of the author to his texts, and thus to the rational commitments of authorship, foreshadows the use of irony among the early German Romantics, as well as Søren Kierkegaard's own pseudonymous writing. And his charge that pure reason can never truly be pure, and thus universal and necessary, anticipates a long line of antirationalist argument. . . . Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=13848.

Kirsch, Adam. "Cloudy Trophies." NEW YORKER July 7, 2008.

Of all the piteous elements in Keats’s story, none is more distressing than the idea that he went to his grave convinced of his failure. For Keats’s last book, in addition to the three masterpieces named in its title, included a series of odes—“Ode to a Nightingale,” “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” “Ode to Psyche,” “Ode on Melancholy,” and “To Autumn”—that are now universally regarded as among the greatest poems in the English language. If any single book ever earned its author immortality, it was this one. And, as Stanley Plumly points out in Posthumous Keats (Norton; $27.95), his moving new study of the poet’s work and legend, “one could form a considerable collection from what was left out of this last book.” Some of Keats’s best poems, including “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” were never collected in his lifetime. . . . Read the rest here: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/07/07/080707crbo_books_kirsch?currentPage=all.

CFP: "The Work of Romanticism," International Conference on Romanticism, Oakland University, MI, October 16-19, 2008.

We invite participants to consider the Work of Romanticism, interpreted as broadly as possible. Thus, topics may include, but are not limited to, working (agricultural, industrial, political, social, etc.); the text as work (e.g., editions, textual variants, the text per se, etc.); (re-)productive labor; the work of Romanticists; responses to works (e.g., reception, intertextuality, etc.); literary, artistic or intellectual labor; and leisure (including idleness, indolence, vacation, travel, retirement, etc.) We welcome proposals for special sessions. Submit 250 word abstracts electronically by April 15, 2008 to r2anders@oakland.edu. Proposals for special sessions should be submitted by March 1, 2008. Contact Chris Clason (clason@oakland.edu) or Rob Anderson (r2anders@oakland.edu) for more information. The conference homepage is here: http://www2.oakland.edu/romanticism/call.cfm.

Adler, Jeremy. "Novalis and Philo-Sophie." TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT April 16, 2008.

• Novalis. Notes for a Romantic Encyclopaedia. Trans. and ed. David W. Wood. Albany: SUNY Press, 2007.
• Novalis. The Birth of Novalis: Friedrich von Hardenberg's Journal of 1797, with Selected Letters and Documents. Trans. and ed. Bruce Donehower. Albany: SUNY Press, 2007.

The success of the French Encyclopédie and its place in the Enlightenment has tended to obscure the role of encyclopaedism in German culture. Yet the ideal of universal knowledge has been a potent force in Germany, shaping the way the nation defined itself ever since the seventeenth century. Novalis played a key part in this debate, not least in seeking to redefine what he called “total science” – his name for encyclopaedism – as a means to achieve cultural renewal. Yet he was sentimentalized after his early death as the dreamy poet of the Blue Flower, and while this ensured his posthumous appeal, it resulted in the comparative neglect of his philosophy. His contribution to German idealism was only fully revealed, a century and a half after his death, by the editors of the critical edition of his works, a literary monument forty years in the making (reviewed in the TLS, October 13, 2000). The edition showed the full extent of the unpublished journals and notebooks, including hundreds of jottings and aphorisms, often circling round a plan for a Romantic encyclopaedia. The new image of Novalis, not unlike that of Coleridge brought about by the editing of his Notebooks, led to a wider revaluation, in which the Romantic dreamer has given way to the incisive philosopher. Now, two centuries after his death, the new material is at long last becoming available in English. . . . Read the rest here: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article3757477.ece.