Burke to Byron

337 Pages·2002·109.458 MB·English

by  Jane Stabler

Burke to Byron, Barbauld to Baillie,
1790-1830
transitions
General Editor: Julian Wolfreys
Publish~ tltiefl
NEW InSTORICISM AND CULTURAL MATERIALISM
John Brannigan
POSTMODERN NARRATIVE THEORY Mark Currie
MARXIST LITERARY AND CULTURAL THEORIES Moyra Huktt
LITERARY FEMINISMS Ruth Robbins
DECONSTRUCTION•DERRIDA Julian Wolfrcys
CHAUCER TO SHAKESPEARE, 1337-1580
SunHee Kim Gertz
MILTON TO POPE, 165~1720 Kay Gilliland Stevenson
BURKE TO BYRON, BARBAULD TO BAILLIE, 17%--1830 Jane Stabler
JACQUES LACAN Jean-Michel Rabate
BATAILLE Fred Botting and Scott WilBon
Forthcoming titiefl
NATIONAL IDENTITY John Brannigan
GENDER Ali~on Chapman
IDEOLOGY James Decltcr
QUEER THEORY Donald E. Hall
POSTMODERNISM • POSTMODERNITY Martin McQuillan
RACE Brian G. Niro
MODERNITY David Punter
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND LITERATURE Nicholas Rand
SUBJECTIVITY Ruth Robbin&
TRANSGRESSION Julian Wolfrcys
FORMAUST CRITICISM AND READER-RESPONSE THEORY
Kenneth Womak and Todd Davis
IMAGE TO APOCALYPSE, 191~1945 Jane Goldman
POPE TO WOLLSTONECRAFT, 1713-1786 Moyra Haslett
PATER TO FORSTER, 1873-1924 Ruth Robbins
ORWELL TO THE PRESENT, 1945-1999 John Brannigan
DICKENS TO TROLLOPE, 1837-1884 Julian Wolfrcys
TERRY EAGLETON David Alderson
JULIA KRISTEVA AND LITERARY THEORY
Mcgllli Becker-Leckrone
HELENE CDCOUS: WRITING AND SEXUAL DIFFERENCE
Abigail Bray
ROLAND BARTHES Martin McQuillan
ALTHUSSER Warren Montag
HOMI BHABHA Eleanor Byrne
'I'nmlitiollll
Seria StandiD& Order
ISBN 978-0-333-73634-0
(outsitle North Amuir:a only)
You can receive future titles in this aeries as they are published. To place a standing order
please contact your bookscllcr or, in the caac of difliculty, write to us at the addrcoa below
with yout Il8lilC and address, the title of the aeries and the ISBN quoted above.
CUitonw: Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd,
Houndmills, Basingstokc, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
transitions
Burke to Byron,
Barbauld to Baillie,
1790-1830
Jane Stabler
pal grave
* © Jane Stabler 2002
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of
this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or
transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with
the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988,
or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying
issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court
Road, London WIT 4LP.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this
publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil
claims for damages.
The author has asserted her right to be identified
as the author of this work in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2002 by
PALGRAVE
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
Companies and representatives throughout the world
PALGRAV E is the new global academic imprint of
St. Martin's Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and
Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd).
ISBN 978-0-333-69625-5 ISBN 978-1-137-14939-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-14939-8
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and
made from fully managed and sustained forest sources.
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
10987654321
10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 II
Contents
General Editor's Preface vii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction X
1. 1790: Reflections of Revolution 1
• Ann Radcliffe, A Sicilian Romance (1790) 1
• Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution
in France (1790) 16
• William Blake, The French Revolution and The
Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790) 30
2. Romantic Drama 46
• Joanna Baillie, A Series of Plays (1798) 49
• Joanna Baillie, De Monfort (1798) 56
• Byron, Man.fred(1817) 64
• August von Kotzebue, Lovers' Vows adapted by
Elizabeth Inchbald (1798) 78
• Charles Lamb, Lord Byron and transitions in
audience taste 81
• Transitions in audience expectations: Lamb's and
Byron's attitudes to women and children 87
3. Romantic Poetry 99
• Eighteenth-century theories of transition 99
• Wordsworth and Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads
(1798; 1800; 1802; 1805) 104
• William Wordsworth, The Prelude (1799;
1804; 1805; 1850) 114
• John Keats 116
• Moving away from the 'Big Six' 121
v
vi Contents
• Anna Barbauld and Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
poetic experimentation 123
• Links between technological and imaginative
experimentation 133
• Charlotte Smith 135
• Anna Seward 138
• Mary Robinson 141
• John Clare 143
• Percy Bysshe Shelley 146
• Lord Byron: the Romantic poet's challenge to
the reading public 149
4. The Romantic Novel and Non-Fictional Prose 158
• Prose battles in the 'pamphlet wars': Burke, Paine,
Mackintosh, Williams, More and Wollstonecraft 159
• William Godwin, Caleb Williams (1794) 174
• Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818): links with the
Jacobin novel 180
• Mary Wollstonecraft, Maria; or, The Wrongs
of Woman (1798) 182
• Matthew Lewis, The Monk (1796) 187
• Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility (1811) and
Persuasion (1818) 192
• Prose journals, fragments and confessions: Dorothy
Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and
Thomas De Quincey 200
5. 1830: Time for Change 211
• Felicia Hemans, Songs of the Affections (1830) 220
• William Cobbett, Rural Rides (1830) 233
• Walter Scott, Tales of a Grandfather and Letters on
Demonology and Witchcraft (1830) 245
• Byron, Werner (1822 and 1830) 251
Chronology 1790--1830 265
Glossary of Key Concepts and Contexts 278
Annotated Bibliography of General Books on Romanticism 283
Bibliography 288
Index 310
General Editor's Preface
Transitions: transitiorr-, n. of action. 1. A passing or passage from
one condition, action or (rarely) place, to another. 2. Passage in
thought, speech, or writing, from one subject to another. 3. a. The
passing from one note to another. b. The passing from one key to
another, modulation. 4. The passage from an earlier to a later stage
of development or formation ... change from an earlier style to a
later; a style of intermediate or mixed character ... the historical
passage of language from one well-defmed stage to another.
The aim of Transitions is to explore passages and movements in
language, literature and culture from Chaucer to the present day.
The series also seeks to examine the ways in which the very idea of
transition affects the reader's sense of period so as to address anew
questions of literary history and periodisation. The writers in this
series unfold the cultural and historical mediations of literature
during what are commonly recognized as crucial moments in the
development of English literature, addressing, as the OED puts it,
the 'historical passage of language from one well-defmed stage to
another'.
Recognising the need to contextualise literary study, the authors
offer close readings of canonical and now marginalised or over
looked literary texts from all genres, bringing to this study the
rigour of historical knowledge and the sophistication of theoreti
cally informed evaluations of writers and movements from the last
700 years. At the same time as each writer, whether Chaucer or
Shakespeare, Milton or Pope, Byron, Dickens, George Eliot, Virgi
nia Woolf or Salman Rushdie, is shown to produce his or her texts
within a discernible historical, cultural, ideological and philosophi
cal milieu, the text is read from the vantage point of recent theore
tical interests and concerns. The purpose in bringing theoretical
vii
viii Genera I Editor's Preface
knowledge to the reading of a wide range of works is to demonstrate
how the literature is always open to transition, whether in the
instant of its production or in succeeding moments of its critical
reception.
The series desires to enable the reader to transform her/his own
reading and writing transactions by comprehending past develop
ments. Each book in the second tranche of the series offers a
pedagogical guide to the poetics and politics of particular eras, as
well as to the subsequent critical comprehension of periods and
periodisation. As well as transforming the cultural and literary
past by interpreting its transition from the perspective of the critical
and theoretical present, each study enacts transitional readings of a
number of literary texts, all of which are themselves conceivable as
having effected transition at the moments of their first appearance.
The readings offered in these books seek, through close critical
reading, historical contextualisation and theoretical engagement,
to demonstrate certain possibilities in reading to the student reader.
It is hoped that the student will fmd this series liberating because
the series seeks to move beyond rigid definitions of period. What is
important is the sense of passage, of motion. Rather than providing
a definitive model of literature's past, Transitions aims to place you
in an active dialogue with the writing and culture of other eras, so as
to comprehend not only how the present reads the past, but how the
past can read the present.
Julian Wolfreys
Ac knowledge me nts
I would like to thank Julian Wolfreys for his patience and encour
agement during the writing of this book. Keith Povey gave invaluable
assistance at the copy-editing stage for which I am most grateful.
My friends and colleagues in the English Departments of Dundee
and Glasgow Universities have offered support and good cheer: in
particular I would like to thank Kasia Boddy, Alison Chapman,
Richard Cronin, Jo-Anne George, Gwen Hunter, Peter Kitson,
Simon Kovesi, Seamus Perry, David Robb, Andrew Roberts, Jean
Spence, Jim Stewart, Nicola Trott, Rob Watt and Keith Williams.
My family and my husband's family have shown tireless interest in
my research and writing: I thank them for this and many other
things. For stimulating conversations about the history of the
period I am grateful to Lawrence and Mary James. David Fairer
has shared his extensive knowledge generously over many years and
his shrewd critical advice, kindly encouragement and editorial
expertise have all helped to shape this study. The book is dedicated
to Nicholas Roe who taught me how to read Romantic poetry.
I am grateful to the editors of The Charles Lamb Bulletin, The
Coleridge Bulletin, The English Review (Philip Allan Updates) and
Essays in Criticism (Oxford University Press) for permission to
reprint in a revised form articles which first appeared in those
journals. I would also like to acknowledge the kind permission
granted by JOHN MURRAY to quote from manuscripts in the
John Murray Archive.
ix