Our world appears to be on the brink of disaster, an appearance that is itself disastrous. The disaster of disaster is that disaster is everywhere, all the time: while on the one hand it appears obvious that disaster should be the exception that proves the rule of a generally non-disastrous world, in actuality no non-disastrous moment arrives. Like a deer in the headlights, thinking is paralyzed by disaster. Do Romantic texts reinforce this problematic state of affairs, or resist it, and if so, how?