THE POLITICS OF ROMANTICISM

In English language criticism, the place to begin the discussion of the political context of Romanticism is with the work of Raymond Williams. His account of Coleridge in Culture and Society lays out the essential terms of discussion:

Williams' account of Coleridge presents us both with opposing terms, “institutions” versus “man's inward consciousness,” and with the means of overcoming that opposition through “cultivation,” that is, through the medium of culture. As a Marxist, Williams was critical of the conservative elements of Coleridge's political writings, but as a sociologist of knowledge, Williams agreed with Coleridge's key point that institutions and subjectivity are vitally interrelated. Indeed Williams argues in Culture and Society that an opposition between institutions and subjectivity developed throughout the nineteenth century, and that this opposition radically transformed the concept of culture.