Table Of ContentPHYSICAL 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
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criticism.|Englishliterature–thcentury–Historyandcriticism.|Abnormalities,Human,in
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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
