Drawing upon historicist and cultural studies approaches to literature, this book argues that the Romantic construction of the self emerged out of the growth of commercial print culture and the expansion and fragmentation of the reading public beginning in eighteenth-century Britain. Starting with an overview of eighteenth-century developments and their impact of authorship, this book explores the construction of personal and poetic identity in the writing of Alexander Pope, Thomas Gray, James Beattie, William Cowper, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Wordsworth. Arguing for continuity between eighteenth-century literature and the rise of Romanticism, this groundbreaking book traces the influence of new print market conditions on the development of the Romantic poetic self.

Drawing upon historicist and cultural studies approaches to literature, this book argues that the Romantic construction of the self emerged out of the growth of commercial print culture and the expansion and fragmentation of the reading public beginning in eighteenth-century Britain. Arguing for continuity between eighteenth-century literature and the rise of Romanticism, this groundbreaking book traces the influence of new print market conditions on the development of the Romantic poetic self.

In "William Wordsworth and the Ecology of Authorship, " Scott Hess explores Wordsworth's defining role in establishing what he designates as "the ecology of authorship" a primarily middle-class, nineteenth-century conception of nature associated with aesthetics, high culture, individualism, and nation. Instead of viewing Wordsworth as an early ecologist, Hess places him within a context that is largely cultural and aesthetic. The supposedly universal Wordsworthian vision of nature, Hess argues, was in this sense specifically male, middle-class, professional, and culturally elite--factors that continue to shape the environmental movement today.

The highly anticipated sequel to The Dream by Tyler Scott Hess. Sometimes plans fail. Sometimes that's for the best, even when someone can't see why. When Timmy is given a vision from God, he is tasked with remodeling an old fire house into a new church while building his relationships with his brother and his new "family," while learning what it means to live by faith.