Rock and Romanticism: Post-Punk, Goth, and Metal as Dark Romanticisms explores the relationships among the musical genres of post-punk, goth, and metal and American and European Romanticisms traditionally understood. It argues that these contemporary forms of music are not only influenced by but are an expression of Romanticism continuous with their eighteenth- and nineteenth-century influences. Figures such as Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, Friedrich, Schlegel, and Hoffman are brought alongside the music and visual aesthetics of the Rolling Stones, the New Romantics, the Pretenders, Joy Division, Nick Cave, Tom Verlaine, emo, Eminem, My Dying Bride, and Norwegian black metal to explore the ways that Romanticism continues into the present in all of its varying forms and expressions.

Expands the understanding of the boundaries of Romanticism and the Gothic

1. Introduction: Theorizing Rock/Historicizing Romanticism.- 2. Empathy for the Devil: The Origins of Mick Jagger's Devil in John Milton's London.- 3. "Bliss was it in that shirt to be alive": Connecting Romanticism and New Romanticism Through Dress.- 4. "Crying like a woman 'cause I'm mad like a man": Chrissie Hynde, Gender, and Romantic Irony.- 5. A Northern "Ode on Melancholy"?: The Music of Joy Division.- 6. "Little crimeworn histories": Nick Cave and the Roots-Raves-Rehab Story of Rock Stardom.- 7. Postcards from Waterloo: Tom Verlaine's Historical Constellations.- 8. Manner, Mood, and Message: Bowie, Morrissey, and the Complex Legacy ofFrankenstein.- 9. Tales of the Female Lover: The Poetics of Romantic Desire in P. J. Harvey'sTo Bring You My LoveandIs This Desire?.- 10.Emocosms: Mind-Forg'd Realities in Emo(tional) Rock Music.- 11. "I possess your soul, your mind, your heart, and your body": External and Internal Gothic Hauntings in Eminem'sRelapse.- 12. "The female Is such exquisite hell": The Romantic Agony of My Dying Bride.- 13. Ashes against the Grain: Black Metal and the Grim Rebirth of Romanticism.