Romantic identities
Subtitle: varieties of subjectivity, 1774-1830
By: Andrea K. Henderson.
Series: Cambridge studies in Romanticism ;; 20
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Cambridge [England]; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 198
Subjects: Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, 1788-1824.; Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792-1822.; Scott, Walter, Sir, 1771-1832.; English literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism.; Romanticism -- Great Britain.; Identity (Psychology) in literature.; Subjectivity in literature.; Self in literature.
Description: On of the defining features of Romantic writing, critics have long argued, is its characterization of the self in terms of psychological depth. Many Romantic writers, however, did not conceive of the self in this way, and in Romantic Identities Andrea K. Henderson investigates that part of Romantic writing that challenges the "depth" model, or operates outside its domain.

Henderson explores various forms of Romantic discourse, explains their economic and social contexts, and examines their differing conceptions of identity.

Individual chapters treat the Romantic view of the self in embryo and at birth, the relation of gothic characterization to the ghostliness of exchange value, anti-essentialism in Romantic physiology, the conception of self as genre in writings by Percy and Mary Shelley, and the link between economic circulation and the distrust of psychological interiority in Scott.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 185-193) and index.