Sentimental literature and Anglo-Scottish identity, 1745-1820 / Juliet Shields.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Shields, Juliet, 1976-

Series:

Cambridge studies in Romanticism ; 86.

Cambridge studies in Romanticism ; 86

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English literature--Scottish authors--History and criticism.

English literature.

English literature--Scottish authors.

Scottish literature--18th century--History and criticism.

Scottish literature.

Scottish literature--19th century--History and criticism.

National characteristics, British, in literature.

National characteristics, Scottish, in literature.

Nationalism and literature--Great Britain--History--18th century.

Nationalism and literature.

Nationalism and literature--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Sympathy in literature.

History.

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

viii, 224 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Summary:

"What did it mean to be British, and more specifically to feel British, in the century following the parliamentary union of Scotland and England? Juliet Shields departs from recent accounts of the Romantic emergence of nationalism by recovering the terms in which eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century writers understood nationhood. She argues that in the wake of the turmoil surrounding the Union, Scottish writers appealed to sentiment, or refined feeling, to imagine the nation as a community. They sought to transform a Great Britain united by political and economic interests into one united by shared sympathies, even while they used the gendered and racial connotations of sentiment to differentiate sharply between Scottish, English, and British identities. By moving Scotland from the margins to the center of literary history, the book explores how sentiment shaped both the development of British identity and the literature within which writers responded creatively to the idea of nationhood"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction : the politics and sentiments of union

The Ossian controversy and the racial beginnings of Britain

British masculinity and Scottish self-control

Sentimental correspondences and the boundaries of British identity

National tales and the domestication of the Scottish Highlands

Rebellions and re-unions in the historical novel.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780521190947

0521190940

OCLC:

557404386

Online:

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