New Discussions of Gender in English Romantic Studies

Over the past few decades, gender studies have reinvigorated the way in which we talk about romanticism. The article discusses some of the key developments and their critical consequences. Critical interventions have not only redirected our reading of familiar texts, but also fundamentally destabilized the canon and even made us question the validity of the label ‘romanticism’ itself. Recent critical work is beginning to uncover a mobile syntax of gender roles. The article focuses on how criticism is beginning to discern an unstable distribution of gender characteristics across the spectrum of literary writing.