Chapter 5 engages with Barthes’s tact by situating it within a philosophical landscape that expands from the West (Kant, Rousseau, Nietzsche) to the East (Kakuzō, Suzuki). In so doing, I reconstruct how Barthes explores the connection between human sociability and intellectual productivity in view of its hermeneutic potential. I show that Barthes’s alternative practice of critical inquiry bears striking resemblance to Adorno’s idea of hermeneutical tact. I argue that Barthes’s notion of tact, although unfashionable in the 1970s, is crucial to ongoing debates that challenge the hermeneutic of suspicion (Gadamer, Ricœur) and transgress the limits of critique (Felski). I also question, however, if the essentially democratic idea of a tactful hermeneutics first introduced by Kant truly translates into Barthes’s, Adorno’s and Gadamer’s theories. Tact, they jointly contend, cannot be taught. Unlike politeness, it must be lived. The elitism this idea implies, and its implicit vicinity to the Romantic idea of the genius, give rise to the suspicion that, while aiming to suspend any class-oriented conceptions of tact, in the end, this may be precisely what their theories help to reproduce.

The first chapter defines what was meant by ’caricature’ in Britain between the late seventeenth century and the early nineteenth century. I explain how the varied usage of ’caricature’ captured the richness of caricatúra’s connotations and etymology in Italian, discussing Giuseppe Baretti’s Italian–English Dictionary, Annibale Carracci’s ’perverse realism’ and the history of ritratti carichi and caricature drawing in Britain. I establish the full scope of carticature’s significance for literature and letters in the Romantic period, extricating the history of literature’s ’caricature’ from the ’golden age of caricature’ associated with the single-sheet satirical print genre. Extracts from the novels of Mary Brunton and Maria Edgeworth illustrate the literary sphere’s view of satirical prints, while quotations from books newspapers and periodicals exemplify the use and debate of ’caricature’ as a term in social and political critique as well as in criticism of literature and the arts.

Using Mahoney’s Relational Spirituality Framework, we summarize mixed evidence that has linked global markers of general involvement in religion to the formation (partner selection, decisions to cohabit, date or marry), maintenance (union satisfaction, infidelity, domestic violence), and dissolution (divorce) of romantic relationships. We then examine four specific religious/spiritual (RS) factors that have been robustly tied to better relationship functioning: sanctification, spiritual intimacy, prayer for partner, and positive RS coping. Next, we discuss more rare but toxic RS factors that can undermine the quality of romantic unions and the well-being of the partners, particularly after romantic dissolution or divorce. We hope this chapter helps readers appreciate the roles of religion and spirituality, for better and worse, for romantic relationships.

Jennifer Lorden reveals the importance of deeply felt religious devotion centuries before it is commonly said to arise. Her groundbreaking study establishes the hybrid poetics that embodied its form for medieval readers, while obscuring it from modern scholars. Working across the divide between Old and Middle English, she shows how conventions of earlier English poetry recombine with new literary conventions after the Norman Conquest. These new conventions – for example, love lyric repurposed as devotional song – created hybrid aesthetics more familiar to modern scholars. She argues that this aesthetic, as much as changing devotional practice, rendered later affective piety recognizable in a way that earlier affective devotional conventions were not. Forms of Devotion in Early English Poetry reconsiders the roots and branches of poetic topoi, revising commonplaces of literary and religious history. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

Chapter 3 focuses on lexical semantics–pragmatics. Drawing on the views adopted in Construction Grammar and Relevance Theory, it provides an in-depth analysis aimed at exploring the nature of conceptual content and its use in context. It is argued that lexical concepts are best characterized by means of rich networks of encyclopedic knowledge, an approach that enables Relevance Theory to resolve a number of conflicting assumptions (including the presumed paradox discussed in Leclercq, 2022). At the same time, the case is made that this knowledge constitutes an intrinsically context-sensitive semantic potential that serves as the foundation of an inferential process guided by strong pragmatic principles. This process is addressed in terms of lexically regulated saturation, which forms the cornerstone of the integrated model outlined in this book.

Jennifer Lorden reveals the importance of deeply felt religious devotion centuries before it is commonly said to arise. Her groundbreaking study establishes the hybrid poetics that embodied its form for medieval readers, while obscuring it from modern scholars. Working across the divide between Old and Middle English, she shows how conventions of earlier English poetry recombine with new literary conventions after the Norman Conquest. These new conventions – for example, love lyric repurposed as devotional song – created hybrid aesthetics more familiar to modern scholars. She argues that this aesthetic, as much as changing devotional practice, rendered later affective piety recognizable in a way that earlier affective devotional conventions were not. Forms of Devotion in Early English Poetry reconsiders the roots and branches of poetic topoi, revising commonplaces of literary and religious history. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

In this chapter, we examine the nascent research on Latinx immigrant romantic relationships, with a particular focus on Central American undocumented and mixed-status immigrant partners rearing children in the United States. We use a socioculturally-attuned lens to reflect on the ways in which the context of illegality shapes romantic relationships between partners, where at least one person is undocumented. As we discuss, illegality is a term used to refer to the US immigration laws, policies, and practices that expose immigrants and their families to discrimination, exploitation, victimization, criminalization, detainment, deportation, and family separation based on liminal legal statuses. We argue in this chapter that illegality is a powerful structural force that transcends cultural explanations of Latinx immigrant romantic relationships. We draw upon a recent study of Central American immigrant women in romantic relationships to apply our socioculturally-attuned lens and underscore how illegality conditions and constrains their relational experiences and opportunities while residing in the United States. We conclude with considerations for family and relationship scholars of immigrant family life seeking to advance immigrant justice.