Physical Disability in British Romantic Literature PDF
Preview Physical Disability in British Romantic Literature
PHYSICAL DISABILITY IN BRITISH ROMANTIC LITERATURE The modern concept of disability did not exist in the Romantic period. This study addresses the anachronistic use of ‘disability’ in scholarship of the Romantic era, providing a disability studies theo- rized account of British literature that explores the relationship between ideas of function and aesthetics. Unpacking the politics of ability, the book reveals the centrality of capacity and weakness concepts totheegalitarianpolitics ofthes,andtheimportance of desert theory to debates about sentiment and the charitable relief of impaired soldiers. Treating the aesthetics of deformity as distinct from discussions of ability, Essaka Joshua uncovers a controversy in picturesque aesthetics, offers accounts of deformity that anticipate recent disability studies theory, and discusses deformity and mon- strosity as a blended category in Frankenstein. Setting aside the modern concept of disability, Joshua argues for the historical and critical value of period-specificterms. isAssociateProfessorofEnglishattheUniversityof Notre Dame, Indiana. She is the author of Pygmalion and Galatea () and The Romantics and the May Day Tradition (). She won the Tyler Rigg Award for Disability Studies Scholarship in Literature and Literary Analysisin . FoundingEditor , University of Oxford General Editor ,University ofChicago Editorial Board , Universityof York , University ofLondon , Universityof Cambridge ,Princeton University , University ofCalifornia, Santa Barbara , University of Virginia , University ofCalifornia, Davis , Harvard University This series aims to foster the best new work in one of the most challenging fields within English literary studies. From the early s to the early s, a formi- dable array of talented men and women took to literary composition, not just in poetry,whichsomeofthemfamouslytransformed,butinmanymodesofwriting. Theexpansionofpublishingcreatednewopportunitiesforwriters,andthepolitical stakesofwhattheywrotewereraisedagainbywhatWordsworthcalledthose‘great national events’ that were ‘almost daily taking place’: the French Revolution, the NapoleonicandAmericanwars,urbanization,industrialization,religiousrevival,an expanded empire abroad, and the reform movement at home. This was an enor- mousambition,evenwhenitpretendedotherwise.Therelationsbetweenscience, philosophy,religion,andliteraturewerereworkedintextssuchasFrankensteinand Biographia Literaria; gender relations in A Vindicationof the RightsofWoman and DonJuan;journalismbyCobbettandHazlitt;andpoeticform,content,andstyle bytheLakeSchoolandtheCockneySchool.OutsideShakespearestudies,probably nobodyofwritinghasproducedsuchawealthofcommentaryordonesomuchto shape the responses of modern criticism. This indeed is the period that saw the emergence of those notions of literature and of literary history, especially national literaryhistory,onwhichmodernscholarshipinEnglishhasbeenfounded. The categories produced by Romanticism have also been challenged by recent historicist arguments. The task of the series is to engage both with a challenging corpus of Romantic writings and with the changing field of criticism they have helpedtoshape.AswithotherliteraryseriespublishedbyCambridgeUniversity Press, this one will represent the work of both younger and more established scholarson eitherside ofthe Atlantic and elsewhere. See theend of thebook for acomplete list of publishedtitles. PHYSICAL DISABILITY IN BRITISH ROMANTIC LITERATURE ESSAKA JOSHUA UniversityofNotreDame UniversityPrintingHouse,Cambridge,UnitedKingdom OneLibertyPlaza,thFloor,NewYork,,USA WilliamstownRoad,PortMelbourne,,Australia –,rdFloor,Plot,SplendorForum,JasolaDistrictCentre,NewDelhi–,India AnsonRoad,#–/,Singapore CambridgeUniversityPressispartoftheUniversityofCambridge. ItfurtherstheUniversity’smissionbydisseminatingknowledgeinthepursuitof education,learning,andresearchatthehighestinternationallevelsofexcellence. www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/ :./ ©EssakaJoshua Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements, noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublished AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData :Joshua,Essaka,author. Title:PhysicaldisabilityinBritishromanticliterature/EssakaJoshua. :Cambridge;NewYork:CambridgeUniversityPress,.|Series:Cambridge studiesinromanticism|Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. :(print)|(ebook)| (hardback)|(paperback)|(epub) ::Peoplewithdisabilitiesinliterature.|Englishliterature–thcentury–Historyand criticism.|Englishliterature–thcentury–Historyandcriticism.|Abnormalities,Human,in literature.|Romanticism. :.(print)|.(ebook)| ./–dc LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/ LCebookrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/ ----Hardback CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracy ofURLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain, accurateorappropriate. For Freddie Contents List of Illustrations page viii Acknowledgements ix Introduction William Godwin and Capacity Invigorating Women: Female Weakness in the Work of Mary Wollstonecraft Wordsworth’s ‘The Discharged Soldier’ and the Question of Desert Picturesque Aesthetics: Theorizing Deformity in the Romantic Era Relational Deformity in Frances Burney’s Camilla Monstrous Sights: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Conclusion Appendix:Dictionary Definitions of ‘Disability’ and ‘Deformity’ Endnotes Bibliography Index vii List of Illustrations Figure First Annual Report of the Poor Law Commissioners for England and Wales (London: W. Clowes, ), –. page Table Group Terms viii Acknowledgements I am extremely grateful to the provost and fellows of Oriel College, Oxford, for awarding me a Research Fellowship, and also to the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts and Dean John McGreevy in the College of Arts and Letters at the University of Notre Dame for their generous financial support. I would like to thank Michael Bradshaw for inviting me to co-write the introduction to Disabling Romanticism: Body, Mind,andText (London:PalgraveMacmillan,),and tocontributea chapter.Someofmyworkfromthisintroductionappearshere.Chapter evolved from a talk he invited me to give at the Romanticism Research ForumatEdgeHillUniversity,UKin.ThanksalsogotoLillaMaria Crisafulli, Serena Baiesi, and Carlotta Farese for their kind invitation to present my work at their Frankenstein conference at the University of Bologna in September , in the year of the Frankenstein bicentenary. I am grateful to Sami Schalk and Brittany Schmeir for their research assistance, to Daniel Johnson in the University of Notre Dame library, and to my undergraduate students for allowing me to test some of this material on them. I have been lucky to have engaged with numerous interlocutors, and to have received generous support and encouragement fromthemovertheyears.IwouldliketothankClareBarker,KevinBarry, JamesChandler, JamesCollins,NoraCrook,LennardDavis,JohnDuffy, AmandaGulley,EncarnaciónJuárez-Almendros,EvaFederKittay,Daniel Johnson, Alastair MacIntyre, Marc Maurer, Robert McRuer, Stuart Mur- ray, Patrick Rader, Michael Rembis, Carrie Sandhal, Jeremy Schipper, Margrit Shildrick, Tobin Siebers, Michael Waddell, Edward Wheatley, and Jennifer Wistey. My husband, Richard Cross, and my sister, Eleoma Bodammer, have read all of the work presented here. I am extremely grateful to them as always. Permission has been granted to reprint from my previously published work: ‘Introduction’, co-authored with Michael Bradshaw, in Disabling Romanticism: Body, Mind, and Text, ed. by Michael Bradshaw (London: ix
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