Studying a wide range of texts from 1760 to 1830, this module examines the formal innovations of Romantic literature but also the fascination with archaic genres such as ballad, epic and national song, whose revival and transformation made Romanticism a 'retro' movement as well as a revolutionary one. The module analyses Romantic theories of genre alongside historical examples, while investigating too the 'poetics of the book': the publishing processes and paratextual practices through which experiments with form and format took concrete shape.