Following the American War of Independence and the French Revolution ideas of 'Natural Rights of Man (later distinguished as particular issues like rights of association, rights of women, slaves, children and animals) were publicly debated in England in the 1790s. Literary figures like Wollstonecraft, Godwin, Thelwall, Blake and Wordsworth reflected these struggles in their poetry and fiction. With the seminal influences of John Locke and Rousseau, these and many other writers laid foundations for high Romantic literature that were not so much aesthetic but moral and political. This focus allows a recovery of figures who have not been foregrounded before, like Bage, Inchbald, Spence, Charlotte Smith and many others who are usually placed as 'Jacobin' writers rather than part of the first-wave Romantics. Although focusing on the 1790s, the book sets the development of natural rights thinking in a much longer perspective and traces the evolution from natural law, resurrected in the eighteenth-century under the new guise of natural rights. Literature of sensibility or benevolence was a literary transition to Jacobin writing of the late eighteenth-century, and the literature of natural rights in general. As well as tracing the history of the 'rights of man' paradigm, this pioneering study also places these concepts in the light of subsequent debate and eventual acceptance of human rights and civil rights in the twentieth-century.
'White's writing style is hugely readable, and the figures he covers are so central to the Romantic period that this book really is essential reading for undergraduates and all of us... This book is a major achievement and I can only hope that the author will extend his project into the nineteenth century, and continue his impressive exploration of natural rights.' - Sharon Ruston, British Association for Romantic Studies Bulletin and Review
'R. S. White's Natural Rights and the Birth of Romanticism in the 1790s is an excellent survey of how some of the key concepts of Romanticism came into being.' - J. M. I. Claver, The Heythrop Journal
'White's engaging book remains an original contribution to our understanding of the literature of the 1790s. Its range is excellent, and its attention to political nuance in some familiar texts is rewarding.' - Michael John Kooy, Modern Language Review
Acknowledgements
From Natural Law to Natural Rights
The Social Passions: Benevolence and Sentimentality
Rights and Wrongs
Manifestoes into Fictions
Novels of Natural Rights in the 1790s
Slavery as Fact and Metaphor: William Blake and Jean Paul Marat
The Rights of Children and Nature
Conclusion
R.S. WHITE after teaching at the University of Tyne is now Professor of English, Communications and Cultural Studies at the University of Western Australia. He has published many books and articles on Shakespeare and on Keats and Hazlitt, and his publications include Natural Law in English Renaissance Literature (1996), Hazlitt on Shakespeare (1996) and Keats as a Reader of Shakespeare (1987) amongst others. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy and was awarded the Australian Centenary medal for contributions to the Humanities through the teaching of English.
Description
Following the American War of Independence and the French Revolution ideas of 'Natural Rights of Man (later distinguished as particular issues like rights of association, rights of women, slaves, children and animals) were publicly debated in England in the 1790s. Literary figures like Wollstonecraft, Godwin, Thelwall, Blake and Wordsworth reflected these struggles in their poetry and fiction. With the seminal influences of John Locke and Rousseau, these and many other writers laid foundations for high Romantic literature that were not so much aesthetic but moral and political. This focus allows a recovery of figures who have not been foregrounded before, like Bage, Inchbald, Spence, Charlotte Smith and many others who are usually placed as 'Jacobin' writers rather than part of the first-wave Romantics. Although focusing on the 1790s, the book sets the development of natural rights thinking in a much longer perspective and traces the evolution from natural law, resurrected in the eighteenth-century under the new guise of natural rights. Literature of sensibility or benevolence was a literary transition to Jacobin writing of the late eighteenth-century, and the literature of natural rights in general. As well as tracing the history of the 'rights of man' paradigm, this pioneering study also places these concepts in the light of subsequent debate and eventual acceptance of human rights and civil rights in the twentieth-century.
Reviews
'White's writing style is hugely readable, and the figures he covers are so central to the Romantic period that this book really is essential reading for undergraduates and all of us... This book is a major achievement and I can only hope that the author will extend his project into the nineteenth century, and continue his impressive exploration of natural rights.' - Sharon Ruston, British Association for Romantic Studies Bulletin and Review
'R. S. White's Natural Rights and the Birth of Romanticism in the 1790s is an excellent survey of how some of the key concepts of Romanticism came into being.' - J. M. I. Claver, The Heythrop Journal
'White's engaging book remains an original contribution to our understanding of the literature of the 1790s. Its range is excellent, and its attention to political nuance in some familiar texts is rewarding.' - Michael John Kooy, Modern Language Review
Contents
Acknowledgements
From Natural Law to Natural Rights
The Social Passions: Benevolence and Sentimentality
Rights and Wrongs
Manifestoes into Fictions
Novels of Natural Rights in the 1790s
Slavery as Fact and Metaphor: William Blake and Jean Paul Marat
The Rights of Children and Nature
Conclusion
Authors
R.S. WHITE after teaching at the University of Tyne is now Professor of English, Communications and Cultural Studies at the University of Western Australia. He has published many books and articles on Shakespeare and on Keats and Hazlitt, and his publications include Natural Law in English Renaissance Literature (1996), Hazlitt on Shakespeare (1996) and Keats as a Reader of Shakespeare (1987) amongst others. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy and was awarded the Australian Centenary medal for contributions to the Humanities through the teaching of English.
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