Security and Destruction:" Reading the Sublime in the British Romantic Period "

Abstract

This dissertation examines the sublime in relation to four authors of the British Romantic period: Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France), William Godwin (Political Justice and Caleb Williams), Percy Shelley (“Hymn to Intellectual Beauty”), and Mary Shelley (The Last Man). It draws on major theorists of the sublime—particularly Longinus, Burke, and Kant—but finally relies on textual analysis, working to discover the distinct texture of each sublime it examines. More specifically, I study the ways in which the authors I study stage and negotiate difficulties in the process of reading or meaning making, difficulties that take many shapes but broadly come as confrontations with the unknown, mysterious, or awe-inspiring. The first chapter centers on Edmund Burke’s attempt to decipher the French Revolution, the second on the interpretive challenges that emerge in William Godwin’s work—more specifically, those that relate to the history of language and the interpretation of character—the third on Percy Shelley’s effort to praise and theorize an unseen divinity, and the fourth on Mary Shelley’s depiction of the last man’s confrontation with an uncertain future, what the novel names a “dread blank.” I show that the plots, arguments, and language of the texts I study are intertwined with—or develop towards—moments typically named sublime and conclude by making the case for its continued relevance.