Populism, Gender, and Sympathy in the Romantic Novel

by Carson, James P.

• ISBN13: 9780230621107
• ISBN10: 0230621104
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-05-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Populism, Gender, and Sympathy in the Romantic Novelis a richly historicized account that explores anxieties about crowds, fiction and disguise, women authors, and unstable gender roles. James P. Carson argues that the Romantic novel is a form individualizing in its address, which exploits popular materials and stretches formal boundaries in an attempt to come to terms with the masses. Informed by Bakhtin, Foucault, and Freud, this book offers fresh new readings of works by Sir Walter Scott, William Godwin, Matthew Lewis, Charles Robert Maturin, and Mary Shelley.

Author Biography

James P. Carson is Associate Professor of English at Kenyon College. He has published articles in the Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies. The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation. Criticism, and other journals and edited collections.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Abbreviations	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
Gothic and Romantic Crowds	p. 25
Popular versus Legitimate Authority in Scott's The Heart of Mid-Lothian	p. 45
Women Rioters and the October Days	p. 46
Women's Dress and "Black Scores"	p. 56
Gothic Properties: Matthew Lewis's The Monk and Journal of a West India Proprietor	p. 75
"A Sort of Half-Man": Disguise, Disgust, and Dismemberment	p. 79
Popular Culture, Slavery, and Social Control	p. 89
Unisonance and the Echo: Popular Disturbances and Theatricality in the Works of Charles Maturin	p. 105
The "Frantic Idea" of Irish Independence: Maturin's Politics	p. 105
Unsexed Women	p. 119
The Echoes of Incarceration	p. 129
Godwin's "Metaphysical Dissecting Knife"	p. 137
Moral Anatomy and Agency	p. 138
The Crowd and the Noble Savage in St. Leon	p. 147
Sympathy and the Problem of Essentialist Gender Definition	p. 153
The Angelic Station and the Calvinist Congregation	p. 161
"A Sigh of Many Hearts": History, Humanity, and Popular Culture in Mary Shelley's Valperga and Lodore	p. 169
Aristocrats and the London Crowd in Lodore	p. 169
From Frankenstein to Valperga	p. 173
History and Sensibility	p. 175
Defining Humanity	p. 180
Republicanism and Popular Culture	p. 186
Conclusion	p. 195
Notes	p. 201
Bibliography	p. 219
Index	p. 237
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