Main Themes in Romantic Painting and Poetry: A Study ion Iconology and Poetics

FAIN: FA-11880-77

William John Mitchell, PhD
University of Chicago (Chicago, IL 60637-5418)

To study English Romantic poetry and painting comparatively and thus to increase insights into the deeper structures - "poetics" and "iconology" - which inform Romantic culture and consciousness. The study will focus on three notable figures, Constable, Turner, and Blake, as exemplars of three main themes: l) Nature and Landscape Vision, 2) Transformations in History Painting and Epic Poetry, and 3) the Iconology of Imagination, Fantasy, and the Supernatural. Other Romantic figures and their predecessors will be drawn on to establish the context in which these main figures and themes may be understood.