The Poetics of Spice

Timothy Morton explores the significance of spice and the spice trade in Romantic literature shedding new light on the impact of a growing consumer culture and capitalist ideology on writers of the period. The Poetics of Spice includes discussion of a wide range of related topics--exoticism orientalism colonialism the slave trade race and gender issues and above all capitalism. The book surveys literary political medical travel trade and philosophical texts and includes new readings of Milton Coleridge Keats Shelley Leigh Hunt Charlotte Smith and Southey among many others.