|
COPYRIGHT 2000 Boston University
Anya Taylor. Bacchus in Romantic England: Writers and Drink, 1780-1830. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999. Pp. xi+264. $65.00.
Over the past two decades romantic studies scholarship has focused its efforts on de-romanticizing the romantics, on refiguring and diversifying our understanding of the categories "Romantic" and "Romanticism," and on expanding the traditional romantic literary canon. To these ends, the Romanticism in Perspective series edited by Marilyn Gaull and Stephen Prickett has offered a number of interesting titles. However, when I sat down to read Anya Taylor's new addition, Bacchus in Romantic England, I must admit that a critical red flag shot up. I wondered if in its attempt to examine romantic writing in relation to Western culture's struggle with the medical, social, and moral dimensions of alcoholism, whether this book eventually would romanticize the romantic poets as creative revelers and debauchers. As I turned the pages with increasing interest, I was thrilled to see Taylor dispel nay initial, critically biased concern. Taylor is a Professor of English at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the City University of New York, who also teaches in the Alcohol and Substance Abuse Program. This teaching and scholarly background lends a unique critical perspective to the lives, poetry, prose, and correspondence of romantic era writers, resulting in what I found to be a new and important contribution to romantic cultural studies. Taylor recognizes that alcohol is not commonly thought of as a "drug," and she complicates the traditional (romantic) view of the romantic artist as drug addict by situating her analysis within 18th and 19th-century medical studies and philosophical discussions of drunkenness, as well as incorporating current studies of alcoholism and substance abuse. Moreover, she effectively reveals and examines the ways in which various romantic writers engaged the cultural discussions concerning alcohol consumption in...
Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.
|
Bookmark this article
Print this article
Link to this article
Email this article
Digg It!
Add to del.icio.us
RSS
