Romanticism and Colonialism
Writing and Empire, 1780–1830

The first sustained investigation of Romantic literature in relation to colonial politics.

Timothy Fulford (Edited by), Peter J. Kitson (Edited by)

9780521591430, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 August 1998

300 pages, 2 b/w illus.
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.6 cm, 0.545 kg

"An interesting read, Romanticism and Colonialism makes inroads toward filling the historical lacunae of a complex literary movement." Thomas Hothem, Albion

The relationships between literary discourse and colonial politics have been the subject of much critical investigation since the publication of Edward Said's orientalism. Yet although much has been written about the forms these relationships took in the early modern period and in the nineteenth century, the Romantic period has been comparatively neglected. This volume sets out to redress that imbalance by investigating Romantic writing in its relationship to the peoples and places with which the British were increasingly coming into contact. Topics examined include slavery, race, climate, tropical disease, religion and commodity production; a wide range of writers are discussed from Edmund Burke to Hannah More, William Blake to Phyllis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano to Mary Shelley, Thomas Clarkson to Lord Byron. Together the essays constitute a broad assessment of Romanticism's engagement with India, Africa, the West Indies, South America and the Middle East.

1. Romanticism and colonialism: texts, contexts, issues Tim Fulford and Peter J. Kitson
2. Romanticism and colonialism: races, places, peoples, 1785–1800 Peter J. Kitson
3. Romanticism and colonialism: races, places, peoples, 1800–1830 Tim Fulford
4. Accessing India: orientalism, anti-'Indianism', and the rhetoric of Jones and Burke Michael J. Franklin
5. 'Sunshine and Shady Groves': what Blake's 'Little Black Boy' learned from African writers Lauren Henry
6. Blood sugar Timothy Morton
7. 'Wisely Forgetful': Coleridge and the politics of pantisocracy James C. McKusick
8. Darkness visible?: race and representation in Bristol abolitionist poetry, 1770–1810 Alan Richardson
9. Fictional constructions of liberated Africans Moira Ferguson
10. 'Wandering through Eblis': absorption and containment in Romantic exoticism Nigel Leask
11. The Isle of Devils: the Jamaican journal of M. G. Lewis D. L. Macdonald
12. Indian jugglers: Hazlitt, Romantic orientalism, and the difference of view John Whale
13. 'Some samples of the finest orientalism': Byronic philhellenism and proto-Zionism at the time of the congress of Vienna Caroline Franklin
14. 'Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee …': Byron's Venice and oriental empire Malcolm Kelsall
15. The plague of imperial desire: Montesquieu, Gibbon, Brougham, and Mary Shelley's The Last Man Joseph W. Lew.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF]