“THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS”: INTELLECTUAL POLITICS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE ROMANTIC EPIC By Copyright 2013 Eric S. Hood Ph.D., University of Kansas 2013 Submitted to the Department of English and the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy __________________________________ Chairperson: Ann Rowland Committee Members:__________________________________ Philip Barnard __________________________________ Anna Neill __________________________________ Dorice Elliott __________________________________ Leslie Tuttle Date Defended: 08/30/2013 ii The Dissertation Committee for Eric S. Hood certifies that this is the approved version of the following thesis/dissertation: “THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS”: INTELLECTUAL POLITICS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE ROMANTIC EPIC __________________________________ Ann Rowland _______________________08/30/2013__ Date Approved iii Abstract Although the thirty years from 1794 to 1824 saw the production of more epic poetry than any other period in British literary history, the epic’s function within the culture of Romanticism remains largely misunderstood and neglected. The problem in theorizing the Romantic epic stems from the uncommon diversity of epic performances during this period and from the epic’s sudden reappearance after a long period of apparent dormancy in the eighteenth century. When the Romantic epic is defined, however, not as poetic form but as a repeated political act, the epic’s eighteenth-century history now appears as a continuous process of generic transformation and its formal diversity no longer threatens its generic categorization. In place of understanding the epic as literary genre, I define the Romantic epic as a recurring and highly stylized rhetorical intervention by the intellectual community beginning in the mid-eighteenth century with the primary function of expanding the power of the intellectual “class.” Investigating the epic’s eighteenth-century transformation, I examine the relationship between classical epics and William Collins and Thomas Gray’s Pindaric odes, James Macpherson’s Ossian “translations,” and James Beattie’s Minstrel. I argue that these so-called pre-Romantic poems reveal both a Romantic rejection of the Augustan epic and a Romantic desire to repurpose the epic’s structures toward the emerging interests of the intellectual community. The conscious task was to develop a new epic mode, one that would make a hero of the man of letters, to write the kind of epic performance found in Robert Southey’s Joan of Arc. Focusing on the Romantic epic’s function, I demonstrate that the Romantic epic provided a pattern through which intellectuals began to see themselves and the world. In order to change society Romantic intellectuals were modifying the genre which, in turn, was reshaping iv intellectual consciousness. Thus, acting reciprocally, I show that the epic was at the center of the larger Romantic project: an intellectual effort to deliver humanity from commercial society. v Acknowledgements Although my name alone appears on this dissertation, the scholarship that follows was the result of a collaborative relationship over many years. I would, therefore, like to acknowledge the participation of my extended academic team. My core committee members quickly and selflessly waded through hundreds of pages of draft material in order to offer constructive comments and help move this project forward. To my dissertation director, Dr. Ann Rowland, I am deeply indebted for her tireless assistance in determining the scope, organization, and framing of this project. At every step of my doctoral candidacy Dr. Rowland has guided me towards becoming a more deeply engaged and productive scholar, and I am thankful for her patience and generosity. Dr. Philip Barnard provided hours of counsel and encouragement through many difficult impasses along the way. His knowledge of this project’s theoretical framework was invaluable. And I am especially grateful to Dr. Anna Neill, whose keen editorial questioning, mentoring, and advocacy on my behalf ensured that this project became a reality and helped to make my advanced academic career possible. I thank you all for your assistance and friendship. I would like to thank Dr. Laura George, at Eastern Michigan University, who introduced me to Romantic poetry and whose energy continues to inspire me towards teaching with honesty and enthusiasm. I am also deeply thankful for the efforts of my instructors at the University of Kansas (especially, Dr. Dorice Elliott, Dr. Frank Farmer, Dr. Iris Fischer, Dr. Katie Conrad, Dr. Amy Devitt, Dr. Susan Harris, Mary Klayder, and Sonya Lancaster), as well as the entire staff of the English department (especially, Lydia Ash, Robin Holladay, and Lori Whitten). Furthermore, I would like to recognize my former students at the secondary and post-secondary level, who have provided me with innumerable insights about poetry and academia along the vi way. And to my many colleagues and friends (Rob Topinka, Matthew Smalley, Jeremy Miller, Lauren Kiehna, Jana Tigchelaar, Ann Martinez, Samantha Bishop-Simmons, Nate Barbarick, Elisa Bershero-Bondar, the entire Digital Mitford team, and the many, many others), who were kind enough to hear portions of these arguments at times and places that should have been safe from scholarly debate and yet answered my polemics on literature, theory, and social justice with humor, patience, and grace, I thank you. Most of all, I would like to thank my parents, Jean and Kevin, who set me on the path to life- long learning, and my best friend and my devoted partner, Molly, who lovingly supported and believed in me throughout this entire process—the most difficult and wondrous adventure of my intellectual life. vii Contents Chapter One. Coming to Terms with the Romantic Epic I. Epic Questions ..................................................................................................................... 1 II. The Romantic Epic as a Rhetorical Genre............................................................................ 7 III. Romanticism and the Men of Letters ................................................................................. 22 IV. The Romantic Intellectual in the Longue Durée ................................................................. 37 Chapter Two. Reconstructing the Epic: Intellectual Mythologies and the Writing of Class I. Pindarics .............................................................................................................................. 64 II. The Ossian Project............................................................................................................. 107 III. Beattie’s Minstrel .............................................................................................................. 133 Chapter Three. Joan of Arc: Robert Southey's Vision of the Maid I. An “Entire Man of Letters”............................................................................................... 158 II. Joan, as a Symbol of Intellectual Authority ..................................................................... 167 III. Joan’s Intellectual Trials .................................................................................................. 195 IV. “Finders” and “Makers” .................................................................................................... 205 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………………….210 1 Chapter One Coming to Terms with the Romantic Epic I. Epic Questions John Thelwall God help him! is writing an epic poem – & Samuel Rogers who is a banker & contrives to make his rhymes pass current for poetry, as his paper goes for cash, is also writing an epic poem . George Dyer also hath similar thoughts. I laughed at all this when George told me so & said they would make a supplement to my obscure epic writers of these days. (C.L.R.S. Letter 405)1 —Robert Southey, May 1799 In literature . there are the ins and outs of fashion. Sonnets and satires and essays have their day—and my Joan of Arc has revived the epomania that Boileau cured the French of 120 years ago; but it is not everyone who can shoot with the bow of Ulysses, and the gentlemen who think they can bend the bow because I made the 1 Unless stated otherwise, the text of Robert Southey’s letters is taken from The Collected Letters of Robert Southey: A Romantic Circles Electronic Edition. Ed. Bolton, Carol and W.A. Speck. 8 vols. <http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/southey_letters/>. This recent electronic edition is the most complete catalog of Robert Southey’s correspondences through 1803, publishing in full previously unavailable and truncated manuscripts. In place of page numbers, the appropriate letter number has been used for in-text citation. 2 string twang, will find themselves somewhat disappointed. (C.L.R.S. Letter 554) —Robert Southey, October 1800 It is easy to forget that the Romantic century saw an epic revival that eclipses any other. The period is more often written as the rise of the novel, or as the zenith of the lyric, or as the revival of the ballad. Yet there, amid the emerging marketplace of middle-class readers, we find this “epomania,” a renewed interest in an outmoded genre that was immensely labor intensive and highly exclusionary. Stuart Curran points out that the resurgence of the epic was a uniquely British phenomenon (158), yet this seems not to have been any kind of limit on its varied productivity. There were