I would like to thank the School of English, UCC and the College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Soci... more I would like to thank the School of English, UCC and the College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences, UCC for providing funding at various stages of this thesis. I would like to thank my supervisor Professor Graham Allen, who first introduced me to Romanticism as an undergraduate student, and has been an unfailing source of support, advice and guidance throughout this project. Graham, for all you have done since you first suggested I read some Godwin, thank you.
Recent challenges to the pivotal position that Walter Scott has been awarded in terms of the gene... more Recent challenges to the pivotal position that Walter Scott has been awarded in terms of the genesis of the historical novel have led to renewed interest in the origins and development of the form, as well as increasing awareness of the diversities of Romantic historical fiction. The variety available within the genre is manifest in the appearance of Frances Burney's The Wanderer and Scott's Waverley within the space of a few months in 1814. Both narratives responded to the momentous events of the French revolutionary period; however, Burney's model of history and fiction fell quickly out of view, arguably as a result of its cosmopolitan principles and Burney's revival of the question of “the wrongs of woman”. This article examines Burney's contribution to the field of Romantic historical fiction, emphasizing the significance of Burney's late historical novel. Tracing The Wanderer's composite historical portrayal of the initial moment of the French Revolution crisis, the article contends that the novel represented an attempt to reopen the broader social, economic and gender issues raised by the French Revolution debate in a period of renewed radical agitation.
Given the fundamental importance of history to the disputes which raged in the 1790s about questi... more Given the fundamental importance of history to the disputes which raged in the 1790s about questions of tradition, authority and social change, and the meaning of the British national past, it is perhaps unsurprising that both radical and anti-Jacobin novelists employed forms of fictional historical narrative to intervene in the French Revolution debate. During the ‘war of ideas’, writers clearly conceived of an active political purpose for the historical novel, and these texts appear as a vital element within the wider response of the British novel to the crisis engendered by the French Revolution. While conservative authors such as Clara Reeve, George Walker and Jane West relied on the genre to counter the threat of revolution, echoing Edmund Burke’s appeal to history to defend the eighteenth-century British political and institutional structure against the encroaches of radical reformers unversed in the lessons of history and experience, a turn to historical fiction simultaneously permitted radical novelists such as William Godwin and Charlotte Smith to extend the pervasive social and cultural analysis of the Jacobin novel into the theatre of history, and promote a spirit of political enquiry and reflection through the medium of the historical. Published during the early years of the pamphlet war, Smith’s The Old Manor House (1793) appears as a key instance of the intersection of the genre of historical fiction with the political and historical dialogue generated by the French Revolution controversy. As Godwin would do at the close of the revolutionary decade in St Leon (1799), Smith employed imaginative historical narrative to issue a direct challenge to the historical view of Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), presenting readers with a complex narrative meditation on the American and French Revolutions, and the ongoing debate surrounding the political settlement that followed the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The use of history to comment on contemporary politics was a well-established practice by the eighteenth century, and, in The Old Manor House, Smith undoubtedly drew on the 1770s as a means of offering a displaced mode of political critique in the reactionary climate of the 1790s. The composite historical agenda of the text indicates, however, that Smith’s narrative intentions extended beyond veiled political expression. Composed in a moment marked by the intensifying violence of the French Revolution, the return of The Old Manor House to the period of the American Revolution facilitated a celebration of their shared ideals, allowing Smith ‘to remind her readers of a fact that had slipped from the
In proportion as republicanism gains ground, men will come to be estimated for what they are, not... more In proportion as republicanism gains ground, men will come to be estimated for what they are, not for what force has given, and force may take away.
I would like to thank the School of English, UCC and the College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Soci... more I would like to thank the School of English, UCC and the College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences, UCC for providing funding at various stages of this thesis. I would like to thank my supervisor Professor Graham Allen, who first introduced me to Romanticism as an undergraduate student, and has been an unfailing source of support, advice and guidance throughout this project. Graham, for all you have done since you first suggested I read some Godwin, thank you.
Recent challenges to the pivotal position that Walter Scott has been awarded in terms of the gene... more Recent challenges to the pivotal position that Walter Scott has been awarded in terms of the genesis of the historical novel have led to renewed interest in the origins and development of the form, as well as increasing awareness of the diversities of Romantic historical fiction. The variety available within the genre is manifest in the appearance of Frances Burney's The Wanderer and Scott's Waverley within the space of a few months in 1814. Both narratives responded to the momentous events of the French revolutionary period; however, Burney's model of history and fiction fell quickly out of view, arguably as a result of its cosmopolitan principles and Burney's revival of the question of “the wrongs of woman”. This article examines Burney's contribution to the field of Romantic historical fiction, emphasizing the significance of Burney's late historical novel. Tracing The Wanderer's composite historical portrayal of the initial moment of the French Revolution crisis, the article contends that the novel represented an attempt to reopen the broader social, economic and gender issues raised by the French Revolution debate in a period of renewed radical agitation.
Given the fundamental importance of history to the disputes which raged in the 1790s about questi... more Given the fundamental importance of history to the disputes which raged in the 1790s about questions of tradition, authority and social change, and the meaning of the British national past, it is perhaps unsurprising that both radical and anti-Jacobin novelists employed forms of fictional historical narrative to intervene in the French Revolution debate. During the ‘war of ideas’, writers clearly conceived of an active political purpose for the historical novel, and these texts appear as a vital element within the wider response of the British novel to the crisis engendered by the French Revolution. While conservative authors such as Clara Reeve, George Walker and Jane West relied on the genre to counter the threat of revolution, echoing Edmund Burke’s appeal to history to defend the eighteenth-century British political and institutional structure against the encroaches of radical reformers unversed in the lessons of history and experience, a turn to historical fiction simultaneously permitted radical novelists such as William Godwin and Charlotte Smith to extend the pervasive social and cultural analysis of the Jacobin novel into the theatre of history, and promote a spirit of political enquiry and reflection through the medium of the historical. Published during the early years of the pamphlet war, Smith’s The Old Manor House (1793) appears as a key instance of the intersection of the genre of historical fiction with the political and historical dialogue generated by the French Revolution controversy. As Godwin would do at the close of the revolutionary decade in St Leon (1799), Smith employed imaginative historical narrative to issue a direct challenge to the historical view of Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), presenting readers with a complex narrative meditation on the American and French Revolutions, and the ongoing debate surrounding the political settlement that followed the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The use of history to comment on contemporary politics was a well-established practice by the eighteenth century, and, in The Old Manor House, Smith undoubtedly drew on the 1770s as a means of offering a displaced mode of political critique in the reactionary climate of the 1790s. The composite historical agenda of the text indicates, however, that Smith’s narrative intentions extended beyond veiled political expression. Composed in a moment marked by the intensifying violence of the French Revolution, the return of The Old Manor House to the period of the American Revolution facilitated a celebration of their shared ideals, allowing Smith ‘to remind her readers of a fact that had slipped from the
In proportion as republicanism gains ground, men will come to be estimated for what they are, not... more In proportion as republicanism gains ground, men will come to be estimated for what they are, not for what force has given, and force may take away.
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