“The Wisdom of the Romantics” dives deep into the lives of various romantic philosophers, artists, poets and writers of the movement (Rousseau, Hegel, Austen, Keats just to name a few.) With an emphasis on emotion, imagination, individual freedom, nature, a love for mystical gothic elements, mythology and art – Romanticism was quite the transformative time! Completely opposite to the focus on reason, science and secular thought favored by Enlightenment thinkers previously.

I’ve been getting back into reading philosophical works and having just finished a biography on Mary and Percy Shelley I was looking forward to revisiting romanticism further. I was thrilled to come across this book and was keen to take my time with it. Overall, it was a fantastic look into some of the key players of the time. Highly recommend!

Thank you to NetGalley and The Globe Pequot Publishing Group/Prometheus Books for this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was meaty. In a good way! It digs deep into the lives and works of some of the biggest names in Romanticism, giving you a real sense of who they were and where they came from. It's not exactly light reading, but it does a good job easing the readers into each figure. Some chapters were definitely trickier than others (yes, I am glaring at you, Hegel -- Not that anyone should be surprised about that).

Overall, I enjoyed the book. I took my times with it so I could really soak it all in. If I'm being honest, I probably would've gotten even more out of it if I'd read an intro to Romanticism first (I believe the author wrote one actually) and maybe even read some of the works myself before reading about them here.

If you intend on reading one of the included works, I suggest you do that first to avoid spoilers then come back to this book for a deeper dive. I believe you will find the experience very rewarding. That's what I intend on doing myself in the near future!

This was a really great look into the Romantic period. Having studied Romantic literature extensively in graduate school I was familiar with a fair bit of what was in the book but still found it completely captivating. I love how the author looked at the period as a whole, exploring literature, poetry, art, philosophy, and general culture. It was extremely well researched and organized and I think would appeal to those that are already intimately familiar with the period as well as those that don’t know much about it.

A fantastic account of the artists, philosophers, composers, and poets that shaped the culture and intellectual currents of Europe at the dawn of the 19th Century. I particularly enjoyed Kellogg's examination of the role of nature in the Romantic movement and the concept of the Sublime that was so integral to the movement. The 'emotive extremes' of the period led to radical experimentation, volatile swings in popular and intellectual thinking, and a breathtaking artistic vibrancy. A fantastic read that reminds us of a moment when the West embraced feeling over rationality, for better and worse.

This book is packed with information on the Romantics. It is the perfect book for a history and literature buff like me. It is not an easy read though, so this is more for someone with a bit of background knowledge about the period.