Dorothy Wordsworthís Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 depicts landscapes haunted by spirits of the past. In Recollections of a Tour, the Highlands represent a kind of unearthly terrain, a poetic vision sustained in part by her own sense of literary history, just as British thoughts of Europe at the time are darkened by the shadow of Napoleon. At one point, Dorothy takes pleasure in the 'very names of Morven and Appin, particularly at such a time, when old Ossian's friends, sunbeams and mists, as like ghosts as any in the mid-afternoon could be, were keeping company with them'. The invocations of 'Ossian' and 'Morven' refer directly to James Macpherson's controversial ëtranslationsí of bardic poetry, which had set the literary world alight in the 1760s.
Through the medium of polite literature, Macpherson's Ossianic poetry had helped to redefine the Scottish Highlands as a British alternative to the Continent in the public consciousness. The relationship between literature, polite society and native British landscapes was redefined in the years of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. From the Lake District to the Highlands, remote regions of North Britain (once beneath the contempt of those who were wedded to refinements of the Grand Tour) increased in their own right as a region of sublime landscapes.
Travelling with her brother William, Dorothy Wordsworth's Recollections of a Tour appears at times to be a kind of pilgrimage, one in which they visit Ossian's native Morven and his reputed burial site an Glen Almain. William's poem entitled 'Glen Almain', published in Dorothy's Recollections of a Tour, grapples with the problems of sustaining this bardic voice. It is difficult to determine at time whether William is conjuring or exorcising the problematic spirit of Ossian. This paper addresses Macpherson's representation of landscapes as an important literary context for the Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland looking at the assimilation of the Highlands into British Romanticism.
The intention of this paper is to examine the figure of the poet within Charlotte Smith's (1749-1806) two extended poems, 'The Emigrants' (1793) and 'Beachy Head' (1807), in order to explore why the ability to look outward beyond the coastline becomes so crucially important to Smithís creation of a national discourse within her texts. Whilst the poems place Smith's poetic persona on the edge of the nation, at its vulnerable boundaries, central to both texts is the creation of an authentic English Landscape that can embody conflicting discourses of national history and culture. Peopled by the transgressive figures of the French Exiles and tainted by the ëdubious spotsí of incoming imperial trade, Smith's coastline is envisioned as an ambiguous and fractured space. I will argue that it is this very openness of Smith's national landscapes that allows for her exploration of the multiple ways in which a nation is defined by what lies beyond its limits.
This paper will argue that Smith's role as a woman poet is fundamental to her ability to produce a poetics that can embrace the ambiguities and vulnerabilities of a 'sea-fenc'd isle' that must look outwards to define what is within. Smith's poetry exploits the ambiguity of womanís position as the representative of national progress and polite culture, but who is also continually constructed as a figure of potential weakness which, like the coastline, must be vigilantly patrolled. Smith's personal narrative of a wronged woman, which echoes the frequent defilement of the coastal figure of Britannia in political prints of the late eighteenth-century, creates a gendered discourse that displays the inherent contradictions at the heart of the fluid boundaries of emergent national ideologies.
Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border is written in such a way that the ballads and notes form a carefully constructed, historically grounded, Scottish identity. The valorisation of masculine, martial virtues in the 'Historical Ballads', which constantly proclaim their northernness and 'Scottishness', cedes to an effeminisation in the 'Romantic Ballads'. There is then an attempted re-assertion of a conservative, patriarchal prerogative in the 'Imitations of the Ancient Ballad' on the part of Scott and his collaborators. The feminisation of the bardic voice and the enveloping of the 'suspect' form of the Romantic ballad, indeed, can be seen to constitute a significant part of Scottís ideological agenda. Read in such a way, the Minstrelsy proclaims a contiguous process of socio-political evolution leading from feudalism to a safe and strong, modern Scotland whose thriving commercial society can hold its place in a beneficial British union.
But Scott's Border Ballads also negotiate the fear of radical unrest within Scotland's urban and metropolitan culture, and particularly the threat of jacobinism inspired by events in France. Through a comparative reading with Wordsworth's drama The Borderers I will look at just how the Borders environment became a region where two writers with anti-French programmes and anxieties over social conflagration could treat radical and revolutionary energies. The dark, nightmarish maelstrom of the lake poetís evocation of Liddesdale and Eskdale 'so close to home, but separated by the terrifying flimsiness of a debateable boundary' gives an apocalyptic vision of an ever-threatening, all-consuming, sublime badlands haunted by the 'squeaking and gibbering' of dead men and, ultimately, by the 'Spectre of the Innocent man'. Scott's 'wild frontier', with its very curious history, is a similarly hostile environment populated by violent bands of freebooters, lit by beacons and burning peel towers. The picturesque view that Scott proffers though, as one might expect, is very different from Wordsworth's vision in that it tempers terror, seeking authority in providence.
This paper will be concerned with the Romantic representation of aesthetics in William Morris's News from Nowhere (1891) and its importance for Environmental Aesthetics, the currently flourishing branch of environmental philosophy which strives to increase ecological sensitivity through a holistic and eventually integrated perspective on humankind's aesthetic relationship with the environment. In explaining the relevance of the Romantic tinge of Morris's novel for Environmental Aesthetics, the paper suggests that the high level of importance Morris ascribes to art as a source of happiness, goodness, and (natural) beauty can be seen as a Romantic defence of the aesthetic against the dominance of scientific rationality associated with the Enlightenment.
Attention is then given to a key figure in German philosophy who has hitherto
been neglected in the critical analysis around Morris: Immanuel Kant (1724-1804).
Tracing back the cross-cultural links and influences between Burke, Ruskin,
Morris and Kant, the paper suggests that Morris had been deeply influenced by
Kant's concept of the Beautiful and the Sublime which infuses Morris's romanticised
aesthetic. The paper emphasises that in spite of initially putative disparities
between these aesthetic concepts, there is a homologous Kantian and Morrisian
pattern of thought in the light of Environmental Aesthetics which has largely
been overlooked. The conclusion suggests that, although Morrisís potential contribution
to 'green' ideas goes far beyond a mere aesthetic reaction to ecological disruption,
the Romantic representation of the aesthetic in News from Nowhere prompts
a heightened ecological sensitivity that is at the heart of contemporary Environmental
Aesthetics.
S. T. Coleridge and J. Clare may be viewed as two opposite kinds of poet. On the one hand, Coleridge travelled through Europe and studied German philosophy. On the other hand, Clare is the epitome of the 'un-taught' tradition. The aim here is to show that even though Clare never read Fichte and the other German Idealists, his poetry conveys an interpretation of the self, and of the world, which shows similarities with philosophers he had never read.
The first part will focus on Coleridge's neglected relation with the German philosopher Fichte. Stemple wrote that Coleridge owed much more to Fichte than to Schelling, we shall see why. I will demonstrate it through the study of various notions developed by Fichte, and taken by Coleridge in his literary, as well as philosophical theories. Feeling, intellectual intuition, self and not-self, and recognition are concepts that Coleridge developed without mentioning Fichte. And yet, their approaches are similar.
The second part will focus upon Clare's poetry and his treatment of this notion.
To understand this parallel, I will try to sketch a Fichtean reading of his
famous poem, 'I am'. As I shall demonstrate, Clare articulates the same notions
as Fichte but in a different context, as well as for a different purpose. Clare
and Fichte have two opposite personalities, and yet they proved to have similar
ideas.
The notion of a female figure who inspires the male poet is by no means confined to the Romantic era. However, I would argue that in Germany during this period this figure became the subject of theoretical and philosophical debate to a greater extent than previously and the role of the female beloved in the initiation of the male artist begins to be described in terms of far more complex processes of mediation and reflection.
I believe that this new complexity can be traced to contemporary German philosophy, in particular, the transcendental idealism of Kant and Fichte. Taking the Romantic reaction to J. G. Fichte's Science of Knowledge as my starting point, I would look at the figure of the Romantic beloved in the works of Early Romantic writers Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel. The consideration of the role of woman in Romantic poetics highlights certain correspondences with poststructuralist textual theory, especially with the work of Jacques Derrida and I would like to consider the following question: Are Schlegel and Novalis's female characters mere manifestations of a collective Romantic notion of woman as static and eternal mirror of man, or does the Romantic engagement with Fichtean philosophy lead to a certain deconstruction of this notion and thus to an acknowledgement of the loved one as a true other, as an independent and autonomous self?
In 1794, two young Birmingham women, Mary and Martha Russell, set sail for America. Members of a nonconformist family who had openly supported the Revolutions in France and America, the Russells had experienced considerable hostility and opposition in Britain, culminating in the burning of their home in 1791. They were on their way to America to make a new life.
Four days into their voyage, however, their ship was captured by a French frigate, the Proserpine. For the next four months they were held prisoner in Brest harbour, being moved from ship to ship every few weeks. They were eventually rescued by an American ship's captain who took them to France. Passing as Americans, they spent six months travelling through revolutionary France before finally leaving for America.
The Russell sisters both kept extensive and detailed diaries of their experiences. I am currently working on a scholarly edition of the diaries.
In this paper, I propose to discuss the ways in which Mary and Martha Russell used their journals to define and control the experience of captivity, setting this within the context of the relationship between France and England in 1794 and paying particular attention to the status of foreigners in revolutionary France. I further propose to explore their problematical relationship to the French Revolution as both supporters and prisoners of that revolution and the contradictory nature of their responses.
In her 1794 novel The Banished Man, Charlotte Smith focuses on the experience of the French émigré díAlonville as a victim of the French Revolution. Similar in subject to Smith's better known poem The Emigrants (1793) and with a working title of The Exile, The Banished Man explores the sufferings of the newly indigent French arriving on English shores. Known for her use of autobiographical material in her work, Smithís alter ego, Mrs Denzil is a pathetic representation of the oppressed widow and writer. She is also friend to émigrés, as clearly showing Smith's sympathy for these 'wandering fugitives', as basing the faultless character of d'Alonville on her own émigré son-in-law. At the same time Smith demonstrates, despite the apology contained in the workís Preface, her belief in the novel as a form fit for the representation of a theme both close to her heart and politically loaded.
Fellow so-called 'Jacobin' writer William Godwin's novel Caleb Williams, or Things as They Are (1794) offers an interesting comparison to Smith's work. Set in contemporary England, Caleb Williams is forced to fly from society as a victim of the tyranny of his guilty master. Similarly Godwinís later novel, St Leon contains an eponymous wanderer. Published in 1799, though conceived as early as 1795, the novelís setting during the Protestant Reformation holds clear parallels with the post-revolutionary period. St Leon, an exiled French aristocrat, becomes fractured from society by his possession of the secrets of the philosopherís stone and the elixir of life. However, untold riches cannot spare him from the miseries attendant on the outcast wanderer. This paper will explore the incidence of isolation, rejection and oppression contained within all three tales and consider what it means to represent the figure of the wanderer during the wake of the French Revolution.
English romantic poets, who were concerned with the human condition in society, were naturally engaged in the movement of abolition of slavery and produced some propaganda poems against the slave trade in the 1790'ís. But their enthusiasm to abolish the slave trade was sometimes ambiguous and gradually dwindled. I would like to explore why and how their egalitarian idea was confused with their revolutionary sensibilities especially by analysing how Southey in 'The Sailor Who Had Served in the Slave Trade' (1790) and Coleridge in 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'(1798) identified the slave trade.
Southey and Coleridge had the idea of Pantisocracy as the idealised society for egalitarians. This utopian scheme, however, broke down partly because they found that they had different points of view about human equality, especially on the social position of slaves. As far as the concept of the equality of slaves was concerned, Coleridge made several contradictory statements, for instance, in his lecture on the slave trade in 1795 and in Table Talk in 1833. Why did this happen? I contend that the answer lies in the precariousness of the egalitarian idea within republican discourse. In the French republic state, the government tried to keep the traditional patterns of ownership while they proclaimed the human equality. The definition of the social position of slaves was complicated by the concept of human equality and that of property. In England Thomas Paine in Rights of Men (1791) challenged the existing idea of 'property'by saying that men had no right to treat man as 'property'. I would like to analyse how Coleridge and Southey were confused about the social position of slaves in relation to republican sensibilities in the 1790's. By analysing Coleridge's and Southey's reaction to the abolition of the slave trade, I would like to speculate why romantic discourses of abolition of slavery were confused and limited.
In the eighteenth century the majority of young British aristocrats embarking on the Grand Tour ignored Spain, seeing it as something of a cultural irrelevance. With the outbreak of the Peninsular War in 1808, matters were transformed and information on Spain was in demand by politicians, military strategists, and readers of everything from history to pulp fiction. The poet and essayist Robert Southey was well placed to cash in on this situation. He had been interested in Spain since 1795 (when he first travelled in the Iberian Peninsula) and was well versed in its literature, history, and language. Between 1808 and 1814 his work for the Quarterly Review established him as Romantic Britain's most prominent hispanist. His preoccupation with Spain in these years also led to the composition of what became one of his most popular works, the epic poem Roderick, the Last of the Goths (1814).
Yet, as this paper will demonstrate, it is inaccurate to portray Southey's hispanism as nothing more than an opportunistic response to a gap in the literary market. On the contrary, he was profoundly interested in Spain throughout his entire career. From the publication of his first prose work, Letters Written During a Short Residence in Spain and Portugal in 1797, in which he interspersed descriptions of Spain's landscapes with ideologically charged readings of its history, Southey used Spain as a means of thinking about the relationship between culture and nation. By examining and contextualising Southey's work on Spain over the next forty years of his life, my paper will offer a fresh perspective on the connections between writing and nationhood in the Romantic period.
The Shelleys' third trip to continental Europe in 1818, which resulted in their residence in Italy until the death of P. B. Shelley, encompassed many of the Italian cities, including Rome. They initially traveled to Rome from Venice via Ferrara and Bologna to sojourn there for a week in November 1818; but their Roman experience was not to have its full import, particularly on P. B. Shelley as he states in his preface to Prometheus Unbound, until the following spring. In considering the implications of 'Rome'in the writings of the Shelleys, the texts I would like to focus on are P. B. Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, The Cenci and Mary Shelley's Valperga, on the basis that 'Rome' figures as an archetype of either republican excellence or tyrannical brutality (or both). There is no doubt that Republican and Imperial Rome provided them with particularly useful models for engaging with the contemporary socio-political milieu, but medieval Rome, as the seat of the papacy, gave them further material to explore the religious institution as an omnipotent social agent. Rome, above all, was a compelling metaphor for the Shelleys, of the glorious past where ruin became literally naturalized as a site of historical reflection: not only was this the case for contemplating European history, but also for reconsidering their personal histories, which, no doubt, lurks in the background of their works. With both views in mind, i.e., the contemporary political situation of Europe and the dialogic aspect of the works of the Shelleys, I would like to explore the further import of 'Rome' in these three works.
In the 1831 Preface to Frankenstein, Mary Shelley wrote: 'Every thing must have a beginning [. . . ] and that beginning must be linked to something that went before. [ . . .] Invention [ . . .] does not consist of creating solid out of the void.' She hints that her novel, like 'every thing'was assembled from pre-existing sources. One source or 'beginning' from which she composed Frankenstein was Antoine Gallandís translation of the Arabain Nights, which she read by 1815 and which captivated many Romantic writers. My paper examines the influence of the Nights and of the legend of Sceherazade in particular upon Frankenstein and its 1831 Preface.
At the beginning of the Nights, women are an endangered species. The Sultan murders a bride and remarries daily until his last wife, Sceherazade, indefinitely postpones her murder and replacement by telling him stories, and finally convinces him to renounce gynocide. In Frankensteinís Preface, Shelley re-enacts Sceherazade's battle in her own struggle to 'think of a story' to answer Byron's now-legendary challenge. Failure, she claims, would prove 'mortifying' - a word suggesting death as well as humiliation. By borrowing the telescopic structure, the character of Safie, and several anecdotes and references from the Nights, Shelley in Frankenstein re-tells Sceherazade's tales.
In Frankenstein and the Preface, Shelley scripts herself and her character Safie as Sceherazade's literary descendants. In doing so, Shelley seems to identify a women's survivalist storytelling tradition which crosses temporal, geographic, and cultural boundaries, and within which she and the legendary Arabian story teller are both included.