Romanticism and the Vocation of Childhood - Hardcover

Judith Plotz explores the normative role that childhood played in Romantic literature. The Romantics claimed the "discovery" of childhood and idealized the child as a model human being essentially connected to nature. Following an introduction which historicizes the Romantic notion of the child, the book examines discourses of childhood in the works of Wordsworth, Lamb, DeQuincey, and in writings by and about Hartley Coleridge, the poet's son. The final chapter focuses on literary treatments of childhood death, revisiting many of the theoretical issues laid out in the introduction.

JUDITH PLOTZ is Professor of English at George Washington University.