Extract

Both monographs inventively explore a Romantic commitment to posterity by exalting the transhistorical significance of poetry and language. Although one entails a more philosophical conception of time and history, and the other focuses on the material and political quality of a history that contextualises human relations with the environment, both works attend to the universal and enduring role of poetry in making sense of the world. The eternity of human existence further manifests, albeit subtly, in Callaghan’s intertextual references to post-Romantic writers such as T. S. Eliot, Louis MacNeice, and W. B. Yeats. This new line of investigation of literary resonances and afterlives through the lens of eternity marks a refreshing and intriguing development in her work on Romantic influences and presences in late nineteenth and twentieth-century poetry. […]

The monographs effectively encourage new insights into the relevance and transhistorical possibilities of Romantic literature. Poetry is not a repudiation of historical realities in favour of an imaginative retreat to a fictional paradise; rather, it serves as a potential tool of resistance that empowers humankind to better navigate the material world by fostering harmony with the environment. It assumes an instrumental role in leading towards a global commoning, where collective efforts are directed towards the preservation of natural wealth and the provision of essential resources for the sustenance of all individuals. As we mark the bicentenary of the publication of P. B. Shelley’s Posthumous Poems (1824), we are reminded not only to reflect on the legacy of Romanticism but also on the rich history and lasting impact of a collaborative mode of work. Our recognition of human cooperation and connection reinvigorates the capacity of poetry to address pressing issues such as environmental degradation and social inequality in the present and future, thereby extending the timeless influence of British Romantic literature to a global audience.