The Painful Poignancy of Desire: An Introduction to Romantic and Postromantic Poetry

The Painful Poignancy of Desire is an introduction to Romantic and Postromantic poetry. Professor Moscovici's exegesis places an emphasis on passion, which is more than merely a romantic theme; passion is the Romantic ethos. Students of literature often wonder why writings from centuries ago are given seemingly permanent places in the canon, and are studied extensively in an undergraduate setting. The Painful Poignancy of Desire addresses contemporary students' desire to know why older works are relevant, and indeed necessary to their lives and study. By presenting aspects of the Romantic and Postromantic movements in poetry, including her own poetry, Professor Moscovici illustrates that these cultural movements are a significant part of history because they illuminate the origins of an individual's pleasures, sense of beauty, and ultimately, our hope. These movements continue to awaken our emotions, imaginations, sensibilities, and creativity. They offer a wealth of riches in literary and human history.

Claudia Moscovici is art critic and novelist based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She obtained her A.B. in Comparative Literature from Princeton University, a Ph.D. in the same field from Brown University and has taught courses on the French Enlightenment, Romanticism and art and aesthetics at Boston University and the University of Michigan. She's the author of the art and aesthetics textbook, Romanticism and Postromanticism (Lexington Books, 2010), and a founding partner of Panodyssey.com, an international art and culture collaborative venture started in 2019 by Universal Music France executive Alexandre Leforestier, IT innovator Yann Rigo and marketing entrepreneur Valentin Bert.  Due to the popularity of her art blog, https://fineartebooks.wordpress.com/, she has been voted by artists one of the top five “most famous female art critics in the world” on ranker.com, the largest international database of opinions, with more than 1 billion votes.