NICHOLAS HALMI

Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Associated Academic Staff in the History of Art Department, University of Oxford, and Margaret Candfield Fellow, University College

 

   

Publications | Blog entries | Broadcasts | Professional activities and appointments | Faculty web page | Academia.edu web page

 

  Books:
  • The Genealogy of the Romantic Symbol (Oxford University Press, 2007) [Read chapter 1 here] [Corrigenda: downloadable as a PDF file in US letter size or A4 size]
    • "a stylish, superbly erudite account of this subject" (Terry Eagleton, Culture and the Death of God)
    • "This book offers one of the most profound reflections on symbol since Paul de Man: subtle, original and provocative. It is a brief book, but extremely rich, and often brilliant" (Michael John Kooy, Times Higher Education Supplement; read the complete review here)
    • "remarkably successful . . . in broadening the historical and disciplinary parameters of its primary subject . . . particularly innovative in paralleling the natural sciences with the humanities. . . . Despite the complexity of its topic, the book is never obscure in its approach, critiquing the most intricate topics with precision and clarity" (Jeffrey Einboden, Coleridge Bulletin)
    • "will take its place before long among the indispensable contributions to Romantic studies, and to the still pressing debates about the status and worth of the Romantic endeavour" (Uttara Natarajan, Notes & Queries)
    • "There is a great deal more to this study than the title might suggest. . . . The scope of the volume is in fact thoroughly European, as is befitting any discussion of the emergence of Romantic thought, and diachronically rich with excurses into classical thought as well as the work of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century philosophers and theologians" (Carol Tully, Modern Language Review)
    • "anyone interested in the history of the Romantic symbol, and the bearing of that history on the concept itself, will find a great deal of compelling and challenging material between the covers of this surprisingly slim volume . . . much more bang for the buck on that subject than anyone else, to my knowledge, for the last half century or so" (Charles Rzepka, MLQ)
  • Editor, Norton Critical Edition of Wordsworth's Poetry and Prose (New York: Norton, 2013; corrected 2nd printing, 2017)
    • "It is likely to set the agenda for classroom study of Wordsworth for years to come, and is an essential text for scholars" (Pamela Clemit, TLS)
  • Co-editor, with Richard Gray, Gary Handwerk, Michael Rosenthal, and Klaus Vieweg, Inventions of the Imagination: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Imaginary since Romanticism (University of Washington Press, 2011)
    • "makes an important contribution not only to the history of philosophy and the study of romanticism, but also to contemporary questions in hermeneutics, theories of knowledge and aesthetics" (Dalia Nassar, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews)
  • Editor, Fearful Symmetry, vol. 14 of the Collected Works of Northrop Frye (University of Toronto Press, 2004) [Corrigenda: p. 82 n. 51: for Propety read Property; p. 197 n. 17: the note should have specified that the story of Giotto's circle is in Vasari's Life; p. 497 (index): add Hadrian, 433n.25; p. 506 (index s.v. Paine): date of The Age of Reason should be 1795.]
  • Co-editor with Paul Magnuson and Raimonda Modiano, Norton Critical Edition of Coleridge's Poetry and Prose (New York: Norton, 2003; 6th printing, 2017)
  • Textual editor, Opus Maximum, vol. 15 of The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Princeton University Press, 2002) [I edited the text; prepared the textual apparatus, statement of editorial policy, and headnotes; and selected the illustrations] [Corrigenda: p. xvii, l. 14: for as compromise read as a compromise; p. xxvii under L&L: for Frags 1–3 read Frags 1–4; p. 10, ll. 11–12: for holds and gives read hold and give (i.e. ignore the emendations); p. 60, l. 9: for anchor read sanction; p. 66, ll. 12–13: for fundamental read prudential; p. 66, l. 17: for practicality read practicability; p. 72, l. 6: for and a read and not a; p. 75, l. 7: for substraction read substratum; p. 80, l. 9 of text (not headnote): for factors read facts; p. 84, l. 5 of C's note: for dependency read dependancy; p. 96, l. 9: for no satisfactory read receive no satisfactory; p. 131, l. 27: for than A B read that A B; p. 207, l. 5: for terms read term; p. 207, l. 14: for contain it read or contain it; p. 352, l. 14 (Greek): for logsmôn read logismôn; p. 355, l. 26 (Greek): for thaumzein read thaumazein; p. 362, textual notes e-f and g-h should begin: ms: . . .]

Digital edition:

Guest-edited journal:

Articles and chapters:

  • "Allegory in British Romanticism", in David Parry (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Allegory (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2024 or 2025)
  • "Fürst Franz und die englische Kultur: eine selektive Wahlverwandtschaft", in Daniel Fulda and Christian Eger (eds.), Poesie und Herrschaft: Literarische Repräsentation und Praxis in Anhalt-Dessau und an anderen Höfen der Aufklärungszeit (forthcoming 2025)
  • "Généalogie du cliché", Revue de littérature comparée, 388 (97.4) (2023), 403–16
  • "Transcendental Revolutions", in Patrick Vincent (ed.), The Cambridge History of European Romantic Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2023), pp. 221–54
  • "Coleridge's Philosophies", in Tim Fulford (ed.), The New Cambridge Companion to Coleridge (Cambridge University Press, 2022), pp. 209–24
  • "Periodisation and the Epochal Event", in Sophie Laniel-Musitelli and Céline Sabiron (eds.), Romanticism and Time: Literary Temporalities (Cambridge: OPB, forthcoming July 2021), pp. 236–43, 258–9
  • "Romantic Thinking", in Panayiota Vassilopolou and Daniel Whistler (eds.), Thought: A Philosophical History Abingdon: Routledge, 2021), pp. 61–74
  • With Stephanie Dumke, "The Reception of A. W. Schlegel in British Romanticism", Serapion: Zweijahresschrift für europäische Romantik, 1 (2020), 89–103
  • "Spinoza nel romanticismo inglese (Coleridge e Shelley)", in Carlo Altini (ed.), La fortuna di Spinoza in età moderna e contemporanea (Pisa: Edizioni della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, 2020), vol. 2, pp. 55–69
  • "European Romanticism: Ambivalent Responses to the Sense of a New Epoch", in Warren Breckman and Peter Gordon (eds.), The Cambridge History of Modern European Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 40–64
  • "The Greco-Roman Revival", in David Duff (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of British Romanticism (OUP, 2018), pp. 661–74
  • With Stephanie Dumke, "An Unpublished Carlyle Letter in Leipzig", Notes and Queries, 66 (Sept. 2018), 372–5
  • "Byron and Weltliteratur", in Norbert Lennartz (ed.), Byron and Marginality (Edinburgh University Press, 2018), pp. 19–29
  • "The Literature of Italy in Byron's Poems of 1817–1820", in Alan Rawes and Diego Saglia (eds.), Byron and Italy (Manchester University Press, 2017), pp. 23–42
  • "Past and Future, Discontent and Unease", in Christoph Bode (ed.), Romanticism and the Forms of Discontent (Trier: WVT, 2017), pp. 87–100
  • "Two Types of Wordsworthian Ambiguity", in Sebastian Domsch, Christoph Reinfandt, and Katharina Renhak (eds.), Romantic Ambiguities: Abodes of the Modern (Trier: WVT, 2017), pp. 37–52
  • "The Anti-Historicist Historicism of German Romantic Architecture", European Romantic Review, 26 (2015), 789–807
  • "The Theorization of Style", in Stefanie Fricke, Felicitas Meinert, and Katharina Pink (eds.), Romanticism and Knowledge (Trier: WVT, 2015), pp. 73–86
  • "Symbolism, Imagism, and Hermeneutic Anxiety", Connotations: A Journal of Critical Debate, 23.1 (2013/14), 127–39.
    • Abridged version, "The Poundian Image and the Romantic Symbol", La Questione Romantica, n.s. 5 (2013 [published 2015]), 153–8
  • "Romanticism, the Temporalization of History, and the Historicization of Form", Modern Language Quarterly, 74 (2013), 363–89
  • Afterword to Helmut Hühn and James Vigus (eds.), Symbol and Intuition: Comparative Studies in Kantian and Romantic-Period Aesthetics (London: Legenda, 2013), pp. 191–3
  • "Coleridge's Ecumenical Spinoza", in Beth Lord (ed.), Spinoza beyond Philosophy (Edinburgh University Press, 2012), pp. 188–207.
  • "Telling Stories about Romantic Theory", European Romantic Review, 23 (2012), 305–11
  • "Byron between Ariosto and Tasso", in Frederick Burwick and Paul Douglass (eds.), Dante and Italy in British Romanticism (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), pp. 39–53
  • "Ruins without a Past", Essays in Romanticism, 18 (2011), 7–27
  • "The Very Model of a Modern Epic Poem", European Romantic Review, 21 (2010), 589–600 [on Byron's Don Juan].
  • "Forward to Rome", The London Magazine, March/April 2009 [review of "Andrea Palladio: His Life and Legacy", Royal Academy of Arts, London]
  • "Coleridge on Allegory and Symbol", in Frederick Burwick (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Oxford UP, 2009), pp. 345–58
  • "Coleridge's Most Unfortunate Borrowing from A. W. Schlegel", in Christoph Bode and Sebastian Domsch (eds.), British and European Romanticisms (Trier: WVT, 2007), pp. 131–42
  • "Greek Myths, Christian Mysteries, and the Tautegorical Symbol", The Wordsworth Circle, 36 (2005), 6–8
  • "Northrop Frye's Fearful Symmetry", Essays in Criticism, 55 (2005), 159–72
  • "Lucy, Lucia, and Locke", Romanticism on the Net, 34–35 (May–August 2004 [i.e. January 2005]) [on Scott's Bride of Lammermoor and Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor]
  • "How Coleridge Was Wilder than Byron", Romanticism, 10 (2004), 144–57
  • Seven articles in the Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760–1850, ed. Christopher John Murray, 2 vols. (New York: Firzroy Dearborn, 2004):
    • "Art and Classical Antiquity"
    • "Boullée, Étienne-Louis" (French architect, 1728–99)
    • "Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich" (German philosopher and novelist, 1743–1819)
    • "Klenze, Leo von" (German architect and writer, 1784–1864)
    • "Robinson, Henry Crabb" (English diarist, 1775–1867)
    • "Schinkel, Karl Friedrich" (German architect, painter, and designer, 1781–1841)
    • "Symbol and Allegory"
  • "The Metaphysical Foundation of Frye's Monadology", in Jeffrey Donaldson and Alan Mendelson (eds.), Frye and the Word: Religious Contexts in the Writings of Northrop Frye (University of Toronto Press, 2004), pp. 97–104
  • "Walter Benjamin's Unacknowledged Romanticism", Lingua Humanitatis 2 (2002), 163–82
  • "When Is a Symbol Not a Symbol? Coleridge on the Eucharist", The Coleridge Bulletin, 20 (2002), 85–92
  • "Mind as Microcosm", European Romantic Review 12 (2001), 43–52
  • "The Norton Critical Edition of Coleridge's Poetry and Prose", Romanticism on the Net, 19 (August 2000)
  • "Why Coleridge Was Not a Freudian", Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams, 7 (1997), 13–28 (special issue on Coleridge)
  • "How Christian Is the Coleridgean Symbol?" The Wordsworth Circle, 26 (1995), 26–30
  • "An Anthropological Approach to the Romantic Symbol", European Romantic Review, 4 (1993), 13–33
  • "From Hierarchy to Opposition: Allegory and the Sublime", Comparative Literature, 44 (1992), 337–60

Other:

Broadcasts:

  • Podcast interview, Cambridge Centre for International Research, April 2024
  • Audio slideshow on William Blake's Illustrations of the Book of Job, BBC News, published 19 May 2011
  • Interview on the Romantic symbol by Robert Harrison, Entitled Opinions, KZSU FM, Stanford University, broadcast 8 February 2011 (and archived on iTunesU)

Professional activities:
Wordsworth's Poetry and Prose
Imventions of the Imagination
Northrop Frye's Fearful Symmetry
Coleridge's Poetry and Prose
Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era
Oxford Scholarly Editions Online
 
   

 

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