Romanticism and the Object (Nineteenth-Century Major Lives and Letters)

236 Pages·2009·1.78 MB·English

by  Larry H. Peer

Rom a n t icism a nd t he Object
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Nineteenth-Century Major Lives and Letters
Series Editor: Marilyn Gaull
The nineteenth century invented major figures: gifted, productive, and influential writers
and artists in English, European, and American public life who captured and expressed what
Hazlitt called “The Spirit of the Age.” Their achievements summarize, reflect, and shape the
cultural traditions they inherited and influence the quality of life that followed. Before
radio, film, and journalism deflected the energies of authors and audiences alike, literary
forms such as popular verse, song lyrics, biographies, memoirs, letters, novels, reviews,
essays, children’s books, and drama generated a golden age of letters incomparable in
Western history. Nineteenth-Century
Major Lives and Letters presents a series of original biographical, critical, and scholarly stud-
ies of major figures evoking their energies, achievements, and their impact on the character
of this age. Projects to be included range from works on Blake to Hardy, Erasmus Darwin to
Charles Darwin, Wordsworth to Yeats, Coleridge and J. S. Mill, Joanna Baillie, Jane Austen,
Sir Walter Scott, Byron, Shelley, Keats to Dickens, Tennyson, George Eliot, Browning,
Hopkins, Lewis Carroll, Rudyard Kipling, and their contemporaries. The series editor is
Marilyn Gaull, PhD from Indiana University. She has served on the faculty at Temple
University, New York University, and is now Research Professor at the Editorial Institute at
Boston University. She brings to the series decades of experience as editor of books on
nineteenth century literature and culture. She is the founder and editor of The Wordsworth
Circle, author of English Romanticism: The Human Context, publishes editions, essays, and
reviews in numerous journals and lectures internationally on British Romanticism, folklore,
and narrative theory.
PUBLISHED BY PALGRAVE:
Shelley’s German Afterlives, by Susanne Schmid
Romantic Literature, Race, and Colonial Encounter, by Peter J. Kitson
Coleridge, the Bible, and Religion, by Jeffrey W. Barbeau
Byron: Heritage and Legacy, edited by Cheryl A. Wilson
The Long and Winding Road from Blake to the Beatles, by Matthew Schneider
British Periodicals and Romantic Identity, by Mark Schoenfield
Women Writers and Nineteenth-Century Medievalism, by Clare Broome Saunders
British Victorian Women’s Periodicals, by Kathryn Ledbetter
Romantic Diasporas, by Toby R. Benis
Romantic Literary Families, by Scott Krawczyk
Victorian Christmas in Print, by Tara Moore
Culinary Aesthetics and Practices in Nineteenth-Century American Literature, Edited by
Monika Elbert and Marie Drews
Poetics en passant, by Anne Jamison
Reading Popular Culture in Victorian Periodicals, by Alberto Gabriele
Romanticism and the Object, Edited by Larry H. Peer
FORTHCOMING TITLES:
From Song to Print, by Terence Hoagwood
Populism, Gender, and Sympathy in the Romantic Novel, by James P. Carson
Victorian Medicine and Social Reform, by Louise Penner
Byron and the Rhetoric of Italian Nationalism, by Arnold A. Schmidt
Gothic Romanticism, by Tom Duggett
Regions of Sara Coleridge’s Thought, by Peter Swaab
Royal Romances, by Kristin Samuelian
The Poetry of Mary Robinson, by Daniel Robinson
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Rom a n t icism a nd t he Object
Edited by
Larry H. Peer
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ROMANTICISM AND THE OBJECT
Copyright © Larry H. Peer, 2009.
All rights reserved.
First published in 2009 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN: 978–0–230–61738–4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Romanticism and the object / edited by Larry H. Peer.
p. cm.—(Nineteenth-century major lives and letters)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–230–61738–4 (alk. paper)
1. English poetry—18th century—History and criticism. 2. English
poetry—19th century—History and criticism. 3. Symbolism in literature.
4. Object (Philosophy) in literature. 5. Romanticism—Great Britain.
I. Peer, Larry H.
PR575.S9R66 2009
821’.70915—dc22 2009013422
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: November 2009
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America.
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This book is dedicated, first of all, to Romanticism scholars
around the world whose interests lie in finding the larger arcs
of development behind particulars, but without ignoring
cross-linguistic and interdisciplinary details; secondly,
to Fran Botkin and Erin Goss for their grasp of how a scholarly
gathering should be conducted; and thirdly, to Janet Peer’s
uncommon common sense and general excellence.
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Con t en ts
Acknowledgments ix
Notes on the Contributors xi
1 Introduction: Romanticizing the Object 1
Larry H. Peer
2 “ Things Forever Speaking” and
“Objects of All Thought” 9
Marilyn Gaull
3 “ Perfectly Compatible Objects”: Mr. Pitt
Contemplates Britain and South America 17
Jocelyn M. Almeida
4 C hildren as Subject and Object: Shelley v. Westbrook 37
Lisbeth Chapin
5 “ I’ll Contrive a Sylvan Room”: Certainty and
Indeterminacy in Charlotte Smith’s Beachy Head,
the Fables, and Other Poems (1807) 51
Mark K. Fulk
6 “ A Better Guide in Ourselves”: Objects,
Romantic-Protestant Ethics, and Fanny Price’s
Individualism 71
Rodney Farnsworth
7 T he Literal and Literary Circulation of Amelia
Curran’s Portrait of Percy Shelley 95
Diane Long Hoeveler
8 Shelley Incinerated 109
Michael Gamer
9 Keats and the Impersonal Craft of Writing 117
Magdalena M. Ostas
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viii c o n t e n t s
10 “ Tun’d to Hymns of Perfect Love”:
The Anglican Liturgy as Romanic Object in
John Keble’s The Christian Year 137
Chene Heady
11 Journeys to the East: Shelley and Novalis 159
William S. Davis
12 Weighing It Again 177
Charles J. Rzepka
Bibliography 201
Index 221
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Ack now l edgmen ts
The production of this book would not have been possible without
the detailed professionalism of the staff at Palgrave Macmillan, the sup-
port of colleagues in the International Conference on Romanticism,
the suggestions of several anonymous readers, and the technical
expertise of Matthew Perry. I thank them all for their generosity.
Three of the book ’s chapters have appeared, some in an earlier
form, in The Wordsworth Circle, volume xxxvix, 1–2 (2008). I am
grateful to the editorial staff of that journal for permission to use the
work of Michael Gamer, Marilyn Gaull, and Diane Long Hoeveler.
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