The theme of artistic inspiration and creative production is explored in both Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘Kubla Khan’ and Percy Shelley’s ‘The Question’. This paper delves into the metatextual dimensions of these themes through the critical lens of New Formalism. Although the term ‘metatextuality’ was coined in the 20th century, the Romantic era’s preoccupation with poetic inspiration, imagination, and self-reflection renders many of its works implicitly metatextual. Both ‘Kubla Khan’ and ‘The Question’ engage deeply with the processes and limitations of artistic creation, embedding within their form, structure, and content a commentary on poetry itself. These poems function on two levels: they present visionary, often dreamlike imagery while simultaneously acknowledging the failure of language and form to fully capture the poets’ imaginative impulse. This paper demonstrates how metapoetic meaning arises from both thematic content and formal elements such as meter, rhyme, sound devices, and structural shifts. Moreover, this paper explores the ways in which the poets suggest that truly accurate representation of artistic vision may be not only impossible but dangerous. Ultimately, this study reaffirms the value of formalist close reading in understanding Romantic poetry's engagement with its own making. By centering metatextuality as a key feature of Romantic poetics, it opens up new avenues for exploring poetic self-consciousness across other works of the period and beyond.

Abstract: In Western literature from antiquity through the Romantic period, weaving served as a standard metaphor for the noble labor of the poet. But in the nineteenth century, the grounds of the weaver figure underwent profound transformation. Having long signified a gilded art, the weaver now emblematized a degraded trade. Weaving, or industrialized textile production, thus acquired new significance as a figure for industrial-age authorship specifically, which writers took up variously in articulating their experience of the new conditions of capitalist literary production. For writers like Thomas Carlyle, the figure became something to disavow, taken up ironically in order to critique literature's recent commodification. But for Karl Marx, the new connotations of the weaver figure provided the basis for a theory of authorship's resistance to capitalist exploitation and a humanistic defense of the dignity of labor.

ABSTRACT This article examines the Swedish debate on Bildung from the early nineteenth century to the present, treating Bildung as a fundamentally contested concept whose meanings have been repeatedly redefined. Drawing on books, scholarly journals, government reports, educational policy documents, and press materials, the study combines intellectual-historical contextualisation with a conceptual-historical approach. The analysis focuses on three periods in which debates on Bildung have been particularly intense in Sweden: the era of idealism and neo-humanism in the early nineteenth century; the period of social movements and national romanticism around the turn of the twentieth century; and the contemporary context shaped by neoliberalism and right-wing populism since the 1990s. Across these phases, Bildung has been mobilised by different social groups and political actors as an academic ideal, a civic and popular project, and a conservative or nationalistic programme. The article argues that, despite persistent disagreements over its meaning, Bildung has recurrently functioned in Sweden as a critical counter-concept to instrumental and utilitarian understandings of education, thereby reflecting broader European intellectual conflicts over culture, education, and politics.

In this article, a novel algorithm for tonal mode classification utilizing the signature of fifths is presented. The proposed method is an extension of previously developed algorithms used for determining the key and key signature within the Western tonal system. The core idea of the algorithm is to analyze the entire piece as well as its most important excerpts, namely, the beginning and the end. The analysis of these three samples (beginning, end, and entire piece) involves the calculation of their corresponding signatures of fifths, which constitute two-dimensional sets of vectors inscribed in the circle of fifths. The length of each vector comprising the signature of fifths corresponds to the multiplicity of notes associated with a particular pitch class, while its direction is related to the position of that pitch class with respect to the circle of fifths. Based on the obtained signatures of fifths, the so-called Triple Composite Signature of Fifths is created, for which both the main directed axis and the major/minor mode axis are determined. Tonal mode is then established heuristically, based on the values of angles between the characteristic vectors of each sample’s signature of fifths and the major/minor mode axis of the Triple Composite Signature of Fifths. The process of tonal mode classification involves defining a tonal mode indicator, which assumes the values of 1 for major and −1 for minor tonality. To evaluate the effectiveness of the developed algorithm, a series of experiments was carried out using datasets of works from the Romantic period by F. Chopin and F. Schubert, as well as piano compositions from various eras. The results confirmed the high effectiveness of the proposed method in identifying tonal mode.

This paper reconfigures the theme of divine encounters in the literature by examining the intersection of pantheism, vitalism, and ecological imagination, with a particular focus on Percy Bysshe Shelley. Far from depicting the divine as transcendent, Shelley envisions it as an immanent force permeating nature, matter, and life itself. In poems such as “Queen Mab”, “Mont Blanc”, “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty”, “Ode to the West Wind”, or “The Cloud” Shelley translates vitalist science into poetic vision, challenging orthodox religious beliefs and contemplating the divine as inherent in natural processes. The study also situates Shelley’s thought within a broader genealogy that extends through John Ruskin’s vitalist aesthetics, Henri Bergson’s élan vital, and into contemporary posthumanist philosophy, neomaterialism and ecocriticism, along with scholars who have contributed to reviving and transforming vitalist traditions, reframing human-nonhuman relations in the Anthropocene. The paper shows the importance of the Romantic period in the development of vitalist approaches in various fields of knowledge, anticipating ecological concerns. The study is framed as a genealogical and epistemological problem attempting to articulate connections while situating poetic practice as a privileged site where vitalism is negotiated.

The research aims to identify the vectors of aesthetic transformations inherent in Romantic literature through the use of micro-elements of “foreign” (alien) literary discourse – details, artistic insertions, allusions, and the resulting plot-compositional parallels. The paper further analyzes the role of specific structural elements in the works of Romantic and Realist writers that represent the typology of semantic transformation when employing a “previously generated text”. The scientific novelty is determined by the methodology and results of examining specific micro- and macro-structural elements, as well as the study of aesthetic trajectories in the use of “foreign discourse” to address issues related to the book-within-a-book phenomenon during the Romantic era. Based on the analysis, it is established that the semantics of “insertions”, symbolically charged details, allusions, and the use of similar plot-compositional models transform the poetics of “recipient texts” and are utilized by authors to achieve specific artistic goals. Elements of “foreign discourse” generate new artistic meanings and form dialogic connections between literary movements and genres. They determine the specifics of symbolization, mythologization, and historization within the literary discourse of the first half of the 19th century, creating prerequisites for a new “reading” of both source and recipient texts. The multifunctional semantics of the applied “microanalysis” strategies offer new prospects for the further study of genre and aesthetic interactions, as well as the functioning of book discourses in the Romantic era.

The aim of the research is to provide a typological description of Louise Colet’s poetry by addressing the theme of solitude, which is of paramount importance to the poetess. Based on an analysis of works on this theme across all her poetic collections, the article identifies the most characteristic features of Colet’s poetic world as well as significant aspects of her poetics. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that, for the first time, the poetess’s oeuvre is examined through a specifically poetological lens with the goal of incorporating it into the typology of the French “minor Romantics”. Furthermore, the study is conducted relying on a central, representative theme (thesaurus-based selection), which allows for the exclusion of peripheral material (dedications, political texts) and thus prevents the “blurring” of the results’ distinctness. As a result of the study, it was established that Louise Colet’s poetry represents a formation largely characteristic of the late Romantic era, in which the features of Romantic and Realistic methods are intertwined, with a noticeable predominance of the latter. Regarding the modality of the works, many are distinguished by a significant gender emphasis (first-person lyrics highlight a characteristically female perspective on phenomena, while portrait poems and epics primarily depict female characters). In purely technical terms, Colet’s poetry is not innovative, but in its basic parameters, it is consistent with the average standards for poetic texts of the Romantic era.

ABSTRACT Recent studies have examined the specific characteristics of nineteenth-century sonata form (Schmalfeldt [2011]; Vande Moortele [2013]; Taylor [2016]; Horton [2017]; Davis [2017]; Hunt [2020]; Hyland [2023]). A distinctive feature of Romantic-era music is its new sensitivity to temporality. Concepts such as “becoming” (Schmalfeldt), “functional transformation” (Horton), “atemporal interpolation” (Davis), and “lyric form” (Hyland) have refined our understanding of formal processes that undermine or problematize the unidirectional flow of Romantic sonata-form movements. This article provides a fresh approach to a related processual phenomenon, which I term “Retracted Tonal Areas” (RTAs). RTAs are tonally distinct and structurally articulated thematic action spaces that are interpolated into one of the two main theme zones of the exposition, occupy a remote tonality, and eventually revert to the previous key. In this article, I differentiate RTA situations from other established theoretical models and focus on an RTA type that emerges within the S-zone and “interrupts” the flow of the subordinate key (SK), resulting in what I label “Interrupted SK Expositions.” Additionally, this article aims to expand the purview of investigation beyond the familiar canon. While previous studies on early-Romantic sonata expositions have primarily focused on Schubert’s music, here I contextualize his formal approach by examining it alongside works by some of his contemporaries, including Anton Reicha, Norbert Burgmüller, Louis Ferdinand Prince of Prussia, Franz Berwald, George Onslow, and Philip Cipriani Potter. Thus, this research offers a broader view of sonata form practices during the Romantic era.

ABSTRACT In the second half of the eighteenth century, Black writers began to make a mark in the transatlantic public sphere through the printing of their poetry and prose. This article explores the multiple forms of translation that mediated how Black writing reached its European audiences in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Exploring the multilingual afterlives of Francis Williams and Olaudah Equiano as case studies, the article demonstrates that linguistic transfer (the actual translation of Black writing from one language into another) was a key element of this process. Translation in the broader sense of critical reception and editorial framing was equally crucial, however. Such practices are illustrated through a reading of Henri Grégoire’s De la littérature des Nègres (1808), a treatise which featured French renderings of Black prose and verse and was itself soon translated into other European languages. The article concludes with an analysis of abolitionist poetry by Johann Gottfried Herder and Robert Southey, white (proto-)Romantic writers who ventriloquized the language of Black subjecthood. The main argument advanced through these case studies is that translation as linguistic transfer, critical framing, and poetic production determined how Black writing and Black authorship were perceived during the Romantic period.

ABSTRACT This essay reviews recent treatments of time and temporality in Romantic literary studies. The essay first tracks how critics' operative conceptions of time—and the Romantic conceptions of time they focus on—have changed over the last few decades as critical methods have changed and observes that critics have increasingly analyzed the central social and intellectual tensions of the Romantic period in terms of the interactions among multiple temporalities. The second section considers critical studies not only of literary treatments of time but also of the temporality of reading literature. The essay concludes with a proposal that time spent reading has a texture similar to time spent in the company of another person.

This study seeks to explore the genealogy and some of the repercussions of textualism, the main linguistic profile of postmodernism. Textualism, the doctrine that equates reality with a text or texts, while not new and rooted in Judeo-Christian philosophical and/or religious thought, represented a discontinuity and a break with that thought. The Romantic movement had a decisive influence on this; it is not in vain that postmodernism can be considered a neo-Romanticism. In connection with these theses, the article addresses the question of how textualism contributes to the destruction of the Western cultural and intellectual tradition.

Introduction . The purpose of the article is a style classification of the architecture of Orthodox churches in the Rostov region of the period of romanticism, eclecticism and Art Nouveau. The object of research was the churches of the mid-19 th — early 20 th centuries, the subject of research is the style evolution of their architectural solutions. The relevance of the topic is due to insufficient study and the need to restore a number of churches of the studied period in the Rostov region. Materials and Methods . In the course of art history research, stylistic and comparative analysis, bibliographic method, photofixation, synchronic and diachronic approaches were applied. The materials were historical and modern photographs of facades and interiors, plans, sections, design drawings of the studied objects of cultural heritage, as well as their prototypes and analogues. Results . The article provides a holistic overview of the Don churches of the mid-19 th — early 20 th centuries. For a number of churches, architectural and artistic analysis was carried out for the first time, prototypes of compositional and decorative solutions were determined, and a style characteristic was given. It is shown that the style evolution of the Don church building of the period under consideration as a whole coincides with the all-Russian one. Monuments of Russian-Byzantine, Byzantine, Russian and Russian Revival styles are represented in the region. For the middle of the 19 th century, borrowings from the architecture of the 15 th century are characteristic, later the motifs of the “patterns” of the Moscow and Yaroslavl schools prevail, the motifs of Pskov and the Novgorod medieval architecture are less often used, in the Byzantine style — elements of the Middle Byzantine architecture. Discussion and Conclusion . Along with all-Russian trends, there are also regional features due to the geographical, historical and political context and traditionalism of the mentality of the Cossacks. Firstly, there is the abundance of Byzantine-style churches. Secondly, the duration of the eclectic stage which left many characteristic monuments. Thirdly, chronological brevity and restraint in the manifestation of modernity. Churches chronologically related to the non-Russian stage are stylistically close to late eclecticism, the techniques of which remain dominant, only slightly transforming under the influence of Art Nouveau. Orthodox churches of the mid-19 th — early 20 th centuries in the Rostov region can and should become a source of inspiration for modern architects who turn to church building.

Socrates, more than any earlier philosopher, was preoccupied with the idea of using reason and observation to understand the world, a practice that not only underpins the scientific method today, but also laid the foundation for Western thinking. Later, in the 17th century, the Enlightenment further championed reason, science, and individualism over religious authority and tradition. Intellectuals of this period posited that human progress could be realized through the use of reason, critical analysis, and the integration of scientific knowledge. In response, Romanticism emerged toward the end of the 18th century, in part, as a reaction to the Enlightenment’s elevation of reason, logic, and scientific thought as the foundational sources of knowledge and societal advancement. Thinkers and artists of the Romantic movement sought to challenge the supremacy of reason by foregrounding other dimensions of human experience: emotion, intuition, imagination, and the sublime. This study argues that Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street” explores the limitations of rational thought. While most critics discussing this text have entered their analyses of Bartleby in an effort to interpret his perplexing behavior, examining the causes behind his sudden refusal to engage in any form of work and his passive withdrawal from life, this study intends to shift the focus to the lawyer’s inability to understand Bartleby. The paper argues that his failure stems from his almost obsessive reliance on intellectual reasoning which eventually prevents him from confronting the deeper complexities of the human experience as embodied by the copyist.

The article explores the relationship between circus spectacles, performances rooted in embodiment and visuality, and literature. The introductory section recalls the Enlightenment origins of the negative perception of spectacles derived from the Commedia dell’arte tradition, as well as subsequent attempts to challenge this view since the Romantic era. The analytical part highlights successful literary adaptations in essayistic prose and poetry, with examples from the works of Jan Kott, Tadeusz Różewicz, Wisława Szymborska, Anna Świrszczyńska, and Adam Ważyk. The aim of the text is to situate these interpretations within an established critical tradition (Jean Starobinski’s comparativism), while also exploring the potential of performance anthropology (Don Handelman’s theory of symbolic types) and somatic criticism (Adam Dziadek’s project).

This study explores the historical development and musical significance of the double bass in both classical and jazz traditions. Tracing its evolution from the 16th century, the research highlights how the instrument transitioned from its early role in Baroque basso continuo to becoming a vital orchestral component during the Classical and Romantic periods. Key figures such as Domenico Dragonetti and Giovanni Bottesini advanced the instrument’s technical and expressive capabilities through innovations in design and performance. In jazz, the double bass moved from its foundational role in the rhythm section to a more prominent melodic and harmonic voice. Influential players like Jimmy Blanton, Charles Mingus, and Ray Brown significantly influenced jazz bass playing through advanced improvisation and complex harmonic interpretation. The study compares right- and left-hand techniques used in both genres, noting classical reliance on arco, pizzicato, and spiccato, versus jazz techniques like two-finger pizzicato, thumb pizzicato, and slap bass. Emphasizing the need for integrated pedagogy, the study advocates for combining classical and jazz techniques to better prepare students for the evolving demands of modern performance contexts.

This paper performs the first direct comparative close reading between two Romantic-era poems: Walter Scott’s Patriotism (from The Lay of the Last Minstrel) and Amvrosii Metlynskyi’s Traitor. The study addresses how the ide­als of duty, loyalty, and national identity were codified during the Romantic movement, a pivotal European force that fundamentally shaped modern na­tional consciousness. Given the current geopolitical environment, exploring these founding texts provides vital context for Ukraine’s ongoing struggle. The methodology employs a rigorous comparative close reading, support­ed by historical and contextual literary analysis and intertextual referencing to classical and ethical philosophy. The analysis reveals a striking thematic con­vergence: both Scott and Metlynskyi equate the rejection of one’s homeland with a total spiritual annihilation – Scott’s “soul so dead” finding its counter­part in Metlynskyi’s “blackened soul.” However, critical divergences emerge in moral frameworks and the audience. Scott’s condemnation primarily targets the aristocratic elite, appealing to the loss of secular honor and social status. Metlynskyi’s voice, in contrast, is grounded more overtly in divine judgment, family virtue, and folkloric symbolism, creating a moral verdict that transcends class and highlights the unique religious-nationalist current of Ukrainian Romanticism. This research is significant because it establishes a clearer link between Ukrainian and Western Romanticism, supporting the integration of Ukrainian literary studies into the broader European field. Critically, by focusing on the moment in history when modern Ukrainian national identity was codified, the study offers an essential epistemological tool. Revisiting these founding texts provides necessary clarity for contemporary Ukrainians as they work to preserve and define their core patriotic values during the current existential crisis.

This paper discusses the rise of Gothic literature, a genre known for its prevailing atmosphere of horror, mystery, and terror, during the 18th-century Romantic period. Romanticism was a literary, artistic, and philosophical movement originating in the 18th century as a reaction against Neoclassicism, emphasising imagination, fantasy, and emotion. Through detailed analysis of events of the era, this paper explores how and why gothic literature swept the world into a frenzy. The research concludes by examining the impact and continued relevance of gothic literature in the modern age.

All the Devils Are Here: American Romanticism and Literary Influence

During the Romantic era, artists grew increasingly interested in the sublime forces of nature and the vulnerability of humanity. One of the most renowned artists of the day, Joseph Mallord William Turner (17751851), gained a hearing in this debate due to his revolutionary treatment of color, light, and atmospheric representation. This paper explores Turners conceptualization of the human-nature relationship, focusing on two of his iconic works: The Slave Ship (1840) and Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbours Mouth (1842). The analysis describes how such Turner techniques as emotive brushwork, atmospheric dissolution, and startling contrasts generate a multi-sensory experience of natures grandeur and human vulnerability that is particularly intense. To trace Turners positioning within the Romantic aesthetic and beyond, the present analysis adopts a literature-based approach that intersects art-historical, philosophical, and ecocritical frameworks of thought. In addition to dramatizing natures overwhelming and inevitable power, Turners works blur the line between observer and scene, engendering an embodied spectacle of awe, terror, and wonder. Furthermore, the study juxtaposes Turners perspective with that of artists including Richard Long, Claude Monet, and Katsushika Hokusai to reveal commonalities and divergences across artistic traditions in depicting what it means to be in nature, whether framed in terms of overpowering experiences, terror, beauty, or the sublime. Turners seascapes also anticipate later artistic explorations of sensory involvement and ecological consciousness, while at the same time representing the Romantic sublime. His work reveals human interaction with nature, yet this relationship is experiential, dynamic, and never completely mastered by humans.

Summary This article examines a selection of artefacts either owned by or associated with the actress, courtesan, and salonnière Emilie Högqvist (1812–1846). The aim is to explore Högqvist’s legacy by engaging with non-canonical sources located in archives, museums, and a private collection. Drawing on Michelle Caswell’s and Marika Cifor’s theoretical concept of radical empathy, David Dunér’s notion of cognitive history, and Staffan Bergwik’s method of re-contextualization, the analysis is grounded in the author’s own positionality. By “thinking with” the artefacts and attending to the affective and cognitive responses they elicit, the article reflects on the layered meanings embedded in these objects. In doing so, it contributes to the body of knowledge surrounding Högqvist, the enduring impact of her posthumous legacy, and the broader cultural context of the Romantic era in Sweden.