A Careful Longing: The Poetics And Problems of Nostalgia

Santesso (English, U. of Nevada) examines the emergence of the nostalgia poem in the 18th century, asserting that the poems are best understood by imagining the premises of nostalgia itself. To this end, he offers a new and broadly applicable theory of "tropic change," in which new genres are built around tropes extracted from decaying genres. He uses the works of Dryden, Pope, Gray, Goldsmith, Cowper and Crabbe to demonstrate his theory. Distributed by Associated University Presses. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)