This book offers a series of kaleidoscopic portraits from an era of change in Europe as it was experienced and communicated by the writers of the age. These include not only the more familiar "Romantic" figures, such as Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Goethe, but also Holderlin, Hoffman, Pushkin, Chenier, Madame de Stael and many others. It is set against the background of the initial liberal dawning that the French Revolution seemed to herald, the disillusion that set in after its descent into terror and the decades of warfare that followed. The author has drawn on recent scholarship ranging over many related aspects of contemporary politics and culture as he presents fresh perspectives on poetry and prose long defined narrowly as Romanticism.