Table Of ContentFORMS OF EMPIRE
Forms of Empire
The Poetics of Victorian Sovereignty
NATHAN K. HENSLEY
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Acknowledgments
Like anything else that comes into the world looking new, this book
would not have existedbutfor an almost infinite series ofpastevents: in
this case, good deeds, generous turns, and material acts of support accu-
mulatedoverdecades.Thesedebtsareprofoundandnothingintypeface
caneverbeadequatetothem.Butitisapleasuretoatleasttry,byakind
of telegraphic compression, to acknowledge the measures of generosity
concealedinthefinishedformofthisbook.
I begin with money. Key support for this project came from grants,
summersupport,andajuniorfacultyleavefromGeorgetownUniversity.
From Macalester College I received help in the shape of a Janet Wallace
Scholarly Activities Grant. A much earlier version of this project was
supportedasadissertationbyDukeUniversityandtheAmericanCouncil
of Learned Societies; even earlier, the University of Notre Dame funded
my graduate work. In my first, hesitant years trying to sort out how an
academic life might proceed, the Dorothy Atkinson Evans Fellowship at
VassarCollegegaveimportantassistance.Andmyaunt,BarbaraHensley,
helpedoutatamomentwhenIreallyneededit.
My life’s lucky plot has put me into contact with many friends,
colleagues, and interlocutors without whose counsel I couldn’t have
continued. Thomas S. Davis has been a trusted collaborator since the
earliestdays,andthestampofourongoingconversationisIhopeevident
on many of these pages. Max Brzezinski, Sarah Lincoln, Scott Selisker,
Philip Steer, and Tim Wientzen have also commented on these ideas in
many forms, over many years; to the extent that those ideas make any
sense,thesefriendshavehelpedmakethemdoso.I’mgrateful,too,forthe
insight and encouragement conveyed in various ways by Jessica Berman,
Gordon Bigelow, Tyler Bradway, Calina Ciobanu, Deborah Denenholz
Morse,DanielDeWispelare,JedEsty,ErinFehskens,AnnaGibson,Lauren
Goodlad, Aaron Greenwald, Molly Clark Hillard, Neil Hultgren, Azeen
Khan, Bill Knight, Kristin Mahoney, Kyle McAuley, John McGowan,
Elsie Michie, Daniel Novak, Matthew J. Phillips, Paul Saint-Amour, and
StefanWaldschmidt.Atakeytime,agroupofthen-juniorVictorianists
met at Devin Griffiths’ house to reada chapter:I thank himand them,
and Benjamin Morgan for organizing us. Another group convened in
Charlottesville to talk method, and I am grateful to Rita Felski for
gathering us there. Searching feedback from audiences at Binghamton,
vi Acknowledgments
Duquesne, George Washington, Ohio State, Penn, the Rutgers British
Studies Center, and the University of Toronto helped make this book
stronger. At Macalester I found a bracing and supportive intellectual
milieu,andlearnedfromNeilChudgar,JimDawes,Daylanne English,
Marlon James, Theresa Krier, and Robert Warde. Over the past several
years I’ve been invigorated by the community in the Georgetown
English department, a peerless place to work.I thank especially Caetlin
Benson-Allott, Ashley Cohen, Jennifer Natalya Fink, Carolyn Forché,
Lindsay Kaplan, Sarah McNamer, Ricardo Ortiz, Cóilín Parsons, Seth
Perlow, John Pfordresher, Sam Pinto, Libbie Rifkin, Nicole Rizzuto,
HenrySchwarz,ChristineSo,andKathrynTemple.DanShorehasbeen
asharpinterlocutoronmanyprojectsincludingthisone;BrianHochman
an imaginative reader and co-conspirator. Mark McMorris read drafts
with dynamic generosity. Patrick O’Malley and Duncan Wu have been
inspiringmentors.
Literature would have meant little to me without my teachers, and to
them I owe a special debt. Thanks go to Mark Amodio, Brother James
Joost, FSC, and Paul Russell. At Notre Dame I had daunting models in
Joseph Buttigieg, Kevin Hart, Greg Kucich, and Sara Maurer. At Duke
IbeganaccumulatingtheprofounddebtsIowetoIanBaucom,Michael
V.Moses,andthelateSrinivasAravamudan.IthankalsoCathyDavidson,
TomFerraro,RobMitchell,ThomasPfau,CharlotteSussman,andPriscilla
Wald.NancyArmstronghaspushedandaidedmeformanyyears.InSouth
Bend,Durham,andpointsbeyond,myscholarlylifehasbeenshapedmost
by Kathy A. Psomiades, whose intellectual DNA is I hope productively
mutatedinthisbook.
For help in giving direction to my wanderings among old material,
I thank the expert archivists at the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts; the
British Library; the Canadian Centre for Architecture; the National
Archives of the United Kingdom; the Harry Ransom Center; the David
M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Duke University;
and, at Georgetown, the Booth Family Center for Special Collections.
ThecreativityanddiligenceofJeesunChoi,AlexMyers,AnnalisaAdams,
Marielle Hampe, and John James have been invaluable over the long
career of this manuscript. I am grateful to the staff at Oxford University
Press—Jacqueline Baker, Ellie Collins, and Sarah Barrett especially—for
theirworkonmybehalf.MystudentsatDuke,Macalester,andGeorge-
town have helped these ideas come into the world, and are in that sense
co-authors.Allerrorsare,obviously,myown.
Insofarasitfreezesintoportableshapemuchofmyacademiclifesofar,
thisbookisatestamenttotheinfluenceofmyparents,Dr.PaulaSolomon
andJeffreyHensley,whotaughtusalltopersistandtoimagineandtotry
Acknowledgments vii
our best. Together with my siblings, Jennifer Hensley and William
Hensley,myfamily’ssupporthasbeeninvaluable.Myclosestcollaborator
inlifeandworkisAnneO’Neil-Henry,whoseintelligenceandunending
humormakeeverythingaroundherspringtolife:Iowehermorethancan
fitintothesewords.JuneandIreneHensleyshoweverydayhownewness
comesintotheworld.Theycan’treadmuchofityet,butthisbookistheirs.
Some parts of the Introduction and Chapter 2 are reprinted by permission of the
IndianaUniversityPress,andwereoriginallyprintedinVictorianStudies,Volume56
Number1andVolume54Number4,respectively.EarlierpartsofChapter4originally
appearedinNovel:AForumonFiction,Volume45,Number2.
Anoteaboutcitations.AllquotationsfromJohnStuartMillhavebeenstandard-
ized using the Online Library of Liberty’s digital version of The Collected Works
of John Stuart Mill, ed. J.M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
London:RoutledgeandKeganPaul,1963–91),33vols.
Becausethisonlinetoolissearchablebothwithineachvolumeandacrossthe
set, I have indicated for each citation only the volume number, observing the
minimalistformat,e.g.,(CWIV).Readerscanaccessthefullresourceathttp://oll.
libertyfund.org/titles/mill-collected-works-of-john-stuart-mill-in-33-vols.
Contents
ListofFigures xi
Introduction:ReadingEndlessWar 1
MutinyAllButUniversal 1
FromReflectiontoMediation 13
UnburialGrounds 20
EquipoiseandElsewhere 32
PART I. EQUIPOISE
1. TimeandViolenceintheAgeofEquipoise 39
GeologicalLiberalismandSlowTime 39
CountrysideGradualism:TheMillontheFlossI 43
LiberalTimec.1859:HenryMaineandJohnStuartMill 50
CountrysideCatastrophism:TheMillontheFlossII 63
OnNaïveandSentimentalNovels:SchillerandthePleasures
ofthePast 75
2. ReformFiction’sLogicofBelonging 85
BecomingGeneral:TheCensus 85
ARuleofEquations/Mill’sLogic 92
“CountofHeads”:InductiveDemocracy 98
TornfromtheListoftheLiving:TheWomaninWhite 102
ArmadaleandtheCharacterofReform 111
ClichéasForm:“Thecivilizeduniverseknowsitalready” 114
BecomingSingular:Dickens’Ejecta 126
PART II. AND ELSEWHERE
3. FormandExcess,MorantBayandSwinburne 137
TheLanguageCircumstancesRequire:TwoInstances 137
BalladsofLifeandDeath 140
“Lickingatthepolice”:TheJamaicaRebellion 142
“Superfluxofpain”:PoemsandBalladsI 148
“Outthere,youseerealgovernment”:MillavecStephen 167
“Indifferencewasimpossibletohim”:Swinburne’sBlake 172
“Casesofextremeexigency”:Mill’sExceptions 178
