Physical Disability in British Romantic Literature by Essaka Joshua (review)

Abstract

exorbitant kind of Enlightenment that he stands for, then to point out that Hamann is so uncannily similar to Blake, only to conclude that this shows how useless the categories of “Enlightenment” and “Romanticism” are in the first place looks like a sleight of hand that, in full view, has gone terribly wrong. Hamann and Blake as representatives of “Exorbitant Enlightenment”? No way. This is an extraordinary, in parts even brilliant study when it is committed to “the deep study of primary texts, their historical contexts, and their conceptual import” (28). It fails exactly when it fails to substantiate its claim to show compellingly that, because of some highly interesting currents that connect anti-Enlightenment figures with william Blake, it no longer makes sense to speak of “Enlightenment” or “Romanticism.” That is a claim that is simply—no, not exorbitant, that would be cheap—but simply extravagant. That is the bad news. The good news is that Regier’s second tale by no means follows from his first. Read his study for the sake of the first, the elucidation of a highly fascinating constellation of Anglo-German relations. It is not vitiated by the excessive claims made for the second.