The Romantics in Alternate History from Hawthorne to Clarke: Generic Edges and the Counterfactual Turn

Broadhead, AP ORCID: 0000-0003-3612-2723 (2018) The Romantics in Alternate History from Hawthorne to Clarke: Generic Edges and the Counterfactual Turn. Romanticism: the journal of romantic culture and criticism, 24 (2). pp. 203-215.

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Abstract

In 2009, Damian Walford Davies called for a counterfactual turn in Romantic studies, a move reflective of a wider growth of critical interest in the relationship between Romanticism and counterfactual historiography. In contrast to these more recent developments, the lives of the Romantics have provided a consistent source of speculation for authors of popular alternate history since the nineteenth century. Yet the aims of alternate history as a genre differ markedly from those of its more scholarly cousin, counterfactual historiography. How, then, might such works fit in to the proposed counterfactual turn? This article makes a case for the critical as well as the creative value of alternate histories featuring the Romantics. By exploring how these narratives differ from works of counterfactual historiography, it seeks to explain why the Romantics continue to inspire authors of alternate history and to illuminate the forking paths that Davies's counterfactual turn might take.

Item Type:	Article
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	24 Jan 2018 15:49
Last Modified:	19 Jan 2023 06:42
DOI:	10.3366/rom.2018.0373
Related URLs:	Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3016775