Stanley Cavell and English Romanticism serves as both introduction to Cavell for Romanticists, and to the larger question of what philosophy means for the reading of literature, as well as to the importance and relevance of Romantic literature to Cavell's thought. Illustrated through close readings of Wordsworth and Shelley, and extended discussions of Emerson and Thoreau as well as Cavell, Duffy proposes a Romanticism of persisting cultural relevance and truly trans-Atlantic scope. The turn to romanticism of America's most distinguished "ordinary-language" philosopher is shown to be tied to the neo-Romantic claim that far from being merely an illustrator of the truths discovered by philosophy, poetry is its equal partner in the instituting of knowledge. This book will be vital reading for anyone interested in Romanticism, Stanley Cavell and the ever-deepening connections between literature and philosophy.

Exploring the continuing relevance of romantic literature, and the links between philosophy and literature, this is the book-length work on Cavell and Romanticism.

Brilliantly appropriating Stanley Cavell's rich and complex approach to literary expression as an investigation into our common linguistic inheritance, Edward Duffy explores Wordsworth and Shelley's poetry as a way into the 'secular mysteries' of the ordinary. Treating romanticism as a transatlantic phenomenon-instantiated on the American side in Emerson and Thoreau-Duffy finds our efforts to locate routes of significance in the everyday in what he persuasively shows to be something of a lacuna in Cavell's thought: a sustained reflection of English romanticism. The prose is throughout perceptive and crisp, and the readings are shrewd and original.