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Peter Otto

Peter Otto

Peter Otto is Professor of English Literary Studies at the University of Melbourne. His recent publications include Gothic Fiction, a microfilm collection of Gothic novels published between 1764 and 1830 (2002-3); Gothic Fiction: A Guide (2004), and Entertaining the Supernatural: Mesmerism, Spiritualism, Secular Magic and Psychic Science (2007; digital edition 2008). He is consultant editor of Adam Matthew’s 'Gothic Popular Culture' portal. His new monograph, Multiplying Worlds: Romanticism, Modernity and the emergence of virtual reality (Oxford, 2011) uncovers a key stage in the development of modern discourses of virtual reality. He is currently working on a project entitled 'William Blake in the 21st century: poetry, prophecy, the history of imagination, and the futures of Romanticism'.

Peter Otto reviews 'John Keats: A Literary Life' by R.S. White

November 2010, no. 326 • 01 November 2010
In Elements of Criticism (1762), the Scottish philosopher Lord Kames writes of the remarkable congruence between real presence, the product of our ‘external senses’, and ideal presence, which appears when art presents something so vividly to our ‘internal’ senses that we forget that it is not actually before us. Ideal presence, he writes, is like a‘waking dream’, the appearances of whi ... (read more)