Larry H. Peer (ed.). Romanticism and the

City. New York: Palgrave Macmillan,

2011, 283 pp.

Romanticism is a pan-European phenome-

non, emerging and disappearing across the

continent in various places with a certain

time-lapse, spreading to the USA, and in

different forms, but with shared prefer-

ences in genres and ideas. In other words:

it deserves a comparative approach. The

city – not even the modern city – is not

only a European phenomenon, but a glo-

bal phenomenon, to which European

urban development has contributed with

urban structures and cultural patterns,

amalgamated in particular with American

urbanism across the globe, and with signif-

icant impact on art and literature, not only

on literary themes, forms and motifs, but

also on the circulation of the book, its

changing position in an evolving media

landscape, and the formation of a reader-

ship. In other words: the city not only

deserves but requires a comparative

approach, from a literary perspective too.

This insight is already present, although

only as a suggestion, in the preface to the

first issue of the journal London und Paris

(published 1798–1815, but not mentioned

in this study).

Although the title of the book, Roman-

ticism and the City¸ and also the editor’s

introduction, point in the direction of this

broader and – for the topic – necessary

perspective, the articles remain within a

national and local framework, which is

mainly British, although with a contribu-

tion on E. T. A. Hoffmann’s classic short

story ‘Des Vetters Eckfenster’ and some

excursions with Rousseau to Venice,

Gogol to Rome and Manzoni to Milan.

The articles are all well written and well

informed but remain within their local

confines, even though a broad range of

topics is dealt with, from reading habits to

the scientist’s perspective. John Johnston’s

The Poet and the City (1984), which

focuses mainly on British literature, has a

much broader approach, but is not

included in the bibliography here.

One article deserves special mention:

Eugene Stelzig’s astute analysis of Words-

worth’s ambiguous and intricate view of

the city, particularly in The Prelude. Here,

the promising tension laid out in Larry

Peer’s introduction between the celestial

and the infernal city is developed, not as

an indication of two types of city or place,

but as a constitutive ambiguity of the

Romantics, a love–hate relationship that

translates into their aesthetic strategies,

aiming simultaneously at approaching the

city, achieving a distance from it and

transforming it into both a real and an

imagined site, impossible but necessary to

live in.

We are really in the period of the

emerging modern city and city culture,

beyond the view of the cosmopolitan elite

of the eighteenth century. However, the

editor has not been able to translate his

insightful sense of complexity to the con-

tributors, except in the case of Stelzig’s

eye-opening article. This may be because

the contributions are all rewritten confer-

ence papers that required a narrow focus,

given the standard time frame for such a

context. The first section called ‘Theories

of the City’ can hardly be said to deal with

theories, neither contemporary nor more

recent ones.

In some contributions, ideas are indi-

cated that should been given more

emphasis. Ernesto Liverni remarks that

although in Manzoni’s novel Milan is a

kind of backdrop, it nevertheless plays a

crucial role, a feature that foreshadows

later literary approaches to the city. This

shrewd observation deserves more atten-

tion, and parallel examples such as

Orbis Litterarum 68:6 526–527, 2013© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Shelley’s Frankenstein, Foscolo’s Ultime

lettere di Jacopo Ortis, Senancour’s Ober-

mann or Eichendorf’s Aus dem Leben

eines Taugenichts could have been dis-

cussed. The interesting article on science

and Romanticism points to the impor-

tance of walking, but the first appearance

of the term ‘flaneur’ (in 1806) and its

later importance is only mentioned in

passing (cf. Frances Ferguson).

The bibliography displays an astound-

ing absence of titles such as Gerhart Grae-

venitz’s truly comparative Die Stadt in

der europ€aischen Romantik (2001), Heinz

Br€uggeman’s ‘Aber schickt keinen Poeten

nach London’ (1985), Pierre Citron’s fabu-

lous La po�esie de Paris dans la litt�eraturefranc�aise de Rousseau �a Baudelaire (1961)

and Philippe Hamon’s Expositions (1989).

Although the transatlantic relationship is

absent, Jefferson’s Notes of Virginia (1785)

created the long-lasting and Romantically

flavoured anti-urbanism in American

thinking and literature. Frances Trollope’s

contrasting and caustic volumes Domestic

Manners of the Americans (1832) and

Paris and the Parisians (1836), or more

recently M. and L. White’s The Intellec-

tual versus the City (1964) are striking

omissions. In spite of articles packed with

knowledge, the lack of regard for the

already existing context and for the inspir-

ing ideas of the introduction to the book

means that this study does not move the

field of urban studies and literature

forward.

Svend Erik Larsen,

Aarhus University

Book Review 527