THE TREMBLING HAND

Bracing and essential a radical reframing of British Romanticism through the lens of Black experience for fans of David Olusoga Gretchen Gerzina Saidiya Hartman and Emma Dabir Wordsworth Shelley Byron Keats the Romantic poets are titans of English literature taught and celebrated around the world Their work is associated with sublime passions violent stormscapes and a questing search for the inner self It is rarely associated with the racial politics of the transatlantic slave economy But these literary icons lived through a period when individual and collective resistance by Black people in Britain and her overseas colonies was making it increasingly difficult and increasingly costly to ignore their demands for freedom A time when popular support for the abolition movement exploded across the country and was met by a vehement reactionary campaign from the establishment A time when white supremacist ideologies were fomented to justify the abuse and exploitation of non white races This cultural context is not immediately obvious in the canon of Romantic poetry But that doesn t mean it s not there The Trembling Hand turns an urgent critical gaze onto six major Romantic authors examining how their lives and works were entangled with the rac