The Ecology of British Romantic Conservatism, 1790-1837

Analyzing Romantic conservative critiques of modernity found in literature, philosophy, natural history, and agricultural periodicals, this book finds a common theme in the ''intergenerational imagination.'' The conservative intergenerational imagination cultivates a counter-narrative to the optimistic telos of progress and the punctual, liberal individual by contending that current generations receive land and culture as a gift from previous generations, and that the current generation bears the responsibility to preserve that gift for future generations. First locating the intergenerational imagination in Burke''s Reflections and Wordsworth''s epitaphic poetry, which chronicle the consequences of modernity and plead for intergenerational continuity in land use, the book then explores regionalist texts of the Romantic period, including Thomas Bewick''s natural histories, Maria Edgeworth''s Irish tales, William Cobbett''s agricultural periodicals, and John Clare''s poetry.