Romance: Two Lectures

In these two compact lectures, a seasoned Oxford scholar guides listeners through the bustling half‑century that bridges Pitt’s rise to power and the Reform Act of 1832. He paints a vivid picture of a literary landscape teeming with figures such as Blake, Crabbe, and Scott, and shows how this era earned the nickname “the Age of the Romantic Revival.”

But the speaker soon turns the discussion inward, asking whether such sweeping labels truly illuminate the past or merely freeze it in place. Drawing parallels with scientific taxonomy, he argues that the term “Romantic” can mask the rich diversity of styles and ideas that coexisted, from the classical leanings of Steele and Sterne to the wild imagination of Landor. Listeners are invited to reconsider the power of terminology and to look beyond convenient categories.