Isolated Cases: The Anxieties of Autonomy in Enlightenment Philosophy and Romantic Literature

The literature of the romantic period has consistently been seen as the source of modern concepts of the individual. Nancy Yousef maintains, however, that the dominant account of the self in romanticism is in need of profound revision. While individuals presented in central texts of the period are indeed often alone or separated from others, Yousef regards this isolation as a problem the texts attempt to illuminate, rather than a condition they construct as normative or desirable. As her ar...