Denise Gigante is associate professor of English, Stanford University, author of Taste: A Literary History and editor of The Great Age of the English Essay: An Anthology, both published by Yale University Press.

"The idea of the organic has troubled critics from Coleridge through Walter Pater on to their modern scholars. Denise Gigante's Life brings extraordinary clarity and renewed force to this traditional perplexity."—Harold Bloom"Life develops an important subject with much persuasive force, making use of extensive and careful research. It demonstrates that concepts of 18th-century vitalistic biology are essential to understanding the forms of major Romantic poems."—Karl Kroeber, Columbia University"Moving gracefully from Smart's animals to Keats' magnetic monsters, this brilliant book asks what the Romantic poets—or anyone—might mean by the deep and easy word 'life.'"—Michael Wood, Princeton University

Denise Gigante is associate professor of English, Stanford University, author of Taste: A Literary History and editor of The Great Age of the English Essay: An Anthology, both published by Yale University Press.

"The idea of the organic has troubled critics from Coleridge through Walter Pater on to their modern scholars. Denise Gigante's Life brings extraordinary clarity and renewed force to this traditional perplexity."—Harold Bloom"Life develops an important subject with much persuasive force, making use of extensive and careful research. It demonstrates that concepts of 18th-century vitalistic biology are essential to understanding the forms of major Romantic poems."—Karl Kroeber, Columbia University"Moving gracefully from Smart's animals to Keats' magnetic monsters, this brilliant book asks what the Romantic poets—or anyone—might mean by the deep and easy word 'life.'"—Michael Wood, Princeton University