Using an illuminating method that challenges the popular notion of
Romanticism as aesthetic escapism, Theodore Ziolkowski explores five
institutions--mining, law, madhouses, universities, and museums--that
provide the socio-historical context for German Romantic culture. He
shows how German writers and thinkers helped to shape these five
institutions, all of which assumed their modern form during the Romantic
period, and how these social structures in turn contributed to major
literary works through image, plot, character, and theme. "Ziolkowski
cannot fail to impress the reader with a breadth of erudition that
reveals fascinating intersections in the life and works of an artist....
He conveys the sense of energy and idealism that fueled Schiller and
Goethe, Fichte and Hegel, Hoffmann and Novalis...".--Emily Grosholz, The
Hudson Review "[This book] should be put in the hands of every student
who is seriously interested in the subject, and I cannot imagine a
scholar in the field who will not learn from it and be delighted with
it".--Hans Eichner, Journal of English and Germanic Philology
"Ziolkowski is among those who go beyond lip-service to the historical
and are able to show concretely the ways in which generic and thematic
intentions are inextricably enmeshed with local and specific
institutional circumstances".--Virgil Nemoianu, MLN
