Lake Methodism: Polite Literature and Popular Religion in England, 1780-1830

(Ohio State University Press) Looking at the religious history of the period, Cragwall unsettles the canonical view of Romanticism as the triumph of transcendent imagination and shows how it was couched in popular Methodism. He shows a fearful symmetry between Romantic and religious enthusiasms as he explores familiar figures such as Wordsworth and Coleridge, as well as lesser-known Romantics. Cragwall is associate professor of English at Loyola University, Chicago.