This volume provides, for the first time, an extensive and wide-ranging discussion of the relationship between Romanticism and Roman antiquity. Encompassing literature, music, sculpture, film, history, politics, and scholarship from across Europe and the US, it assesses the influence ancient Roman culture has had upon Romanticism, and the influence Romanticism has in turn had upon our understanding of the ancient Romans.

Arranged in three sections - Romanticisms, Romantics, and Reception - the 20 contributions in this volume assess various shared themes and motifs, case studies from the Romantic Period, and the way in which the reception of Romanticism shaped and was shaped by the reception of Roman antiquity. By highlighting the key role that the Romans played in the creation and development of Romanticism, and the role Romanticism has since played in conceptions of the Romans, Romans and Romantics initiates not only a reassessment of the relationship between its two protagonists, but develops a new understanding of each of them individually.

Figures discussed within the volume include Byron, Emerson, Foscolo, Goethe, Hardy, Hawthorne, Keats, Maggi, Mozart, Niebuhr, Pastrone, Pater, Jean Paul, Poe, Pushkin, Mary and Percy Shelley, the Schlegel brothers, Charlotte Smith, Madame de Staël, Thoreau, Vosmaer, Wergeland, and Wordsworth.