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The Regency Novel and the British Constitution: Austen, Brunton, Shelley, and the Culture of Romantic Decline

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The Regency Novel and the British Constitution: Austen, Brunton, Shelley, and the Culture of Romantic Decline THE REGENCY NOVEL AND THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION: AUSTEN, BRUNTON, SHELLEY, AND THE CULTURE OF ROMANTIC DECLINE Sarah Elizabeth Marsh A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English and Comparative Literature. Chapel Hill 2013 Approved by: Jeanne Moskal Mary Floyd-Wilson Beverly Taylor James Thompson Jane Thrailkill © 2013 Sarah Elizabeth Marsh ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT SARAH MARSH: The Regency Novel and the British Constitution: Austen, Brunton, Shelley, and the Culture of Romantic Decline (Under the direction of Jeanne Moskal) During the Regency period (1811-1820), Britons were faced at home with daunting political problems: a scandal-plagued royal family; ongoing war with France; a weak postwar economy; a complicated and relatively new union of Scotland with England and Wales; and an enormous new empire abroad that few understood and none knew how to manage. As a hedge against this apparent national decline, Britons made frequent recourse to an ideal of national cohesion they called the British “constitution”: in medicine, the constitution (or health) of British bodies; in domestic matters, the constitution of the British family; in science, the constitution of the British atmosphere and landscape; in politics, the constitution of the British polity out of the English, the Welsh, and the Scottish; in government, the constitutional monarchy comprising the House of Lords, the House of Commons, and the king; in jurisprudence, the body of parliamentary law known as the British Constitution. “Constitution” was for Britons a multivalent and powerful term that emphasized the interrelatedness of political, legal, social, environmental, and medical understandings of lived experience. And yet, as the nineteenth century moved into its second decade, Britons were nevertheless convinced that theirs was a national constitution on the verge of ruin. This dissertation assesses the interaction of British constitutions—physiological, legal, and national—with genre in the Regency-era novels of Jane Austen, Mary Brunton, iii and Mary Shelley. These novels are no exception to the larger trend of Regency-era declinism; what makes these women’s fictive appraisals of Britain’s ruin so remarkable is how they use gender and genre categories to unsettle the seemingly stable idea of a British constitution. The novel was primed for this political work because it was the principal conduit through which Britons indulged their obsession with constitutional decline: eighteenth-century sentimental and gothic fictions almost universally feature as a plotline the constitutional ruin of heroines. In their Regency-era novels, Austen, Brunton, and Shelley seized upon this older tradition to level its sexual double standard: constitutional decline, they insist, inheres not in women’s bodies (as the sentimental and gothic traditions held), but in a social order—and a literary tradition—that maintained women and other disenfranchised groups in positions of precarious constitutional legitimacy. Taken together, the Regency-era novels of Austen, Brunton, and Shelley demonstrate that the British constitution—that old ideal of national cohesion—might be nothing more (and certainly nothing less) than Britain’s greatest national fiction. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have so many people to thank for this. First, though, I would like to acknowledge at large the graduate students, faculty, and staff of UNC’s Department of English and Comparative Literature. Together, they form the supportive academic culture in which this project took root. Special thanks goes first to Candy DeBerry, Dana Shiller, Penelope Pelizzon, Phil Smith, John Twyning, and Marah Gubar, who encouraged me as an undergraduate and MFA student to pursue a PhD in literature. During my second year at UNC, John McGowan, Bob Miles, Bland Simpson, and Kara GrawOzburn made possible a formative semester I spent abroad on King’s College London’s MA program in Literature and Medicine. Neil Vickers and Brian Hurwitz worked tirelessly at KCL to ensure that this exchange went smoothly with generous financial and academic support. I thank Neil especially, who was a transatlantic member of my PhD exam committee and offered valuable comments on this project’s introduction. Tommy Nixon provided prompt and kind assistance at the Davis Library reference desk, retrieving several elusive titles in this project’s bibliography when I had despaired of ever locating them. UNC’s Department of English and Comparative Literature and the Graduate Schools of UNC and KCL have supported my research with four fellowships; I am indebted to the administrators and donors of these awards for their work and generosity. v I could not have assembled as my dissertation committee a kinder group of people. Beverly Taylor has been a source of cheerful encouragement since I was a student in her novels course years ago; as Department Chair, she was instrumental in helping me to coordinate the administrative and financial support to study at KCL. James Thompson’s insights, particularly his reading of my chapters on Jane Austen, have been invaluable to deepening the claims I made across this dissertation; his humor and delightful conversation made the work a pleasure. Mary Floyd-Wilson’s guidance and insights have been a steady source of inspiration; among other major contributions, she made the groundbreaking suggestion that perhaps I was not just talking about Romantic-era health maintenance, but about the British constitution. Jane Thrailkill generously has given me many opportunities to study and teach with her—a gift that has transformed the way I think about the emerging field of Literature and Medicine. My dissertation director, Jeanne Moskal, has fostered my intellectual life since my first days on UNC’s campus when I was enrolled in her graduate seminar on Mary Shelley. In that class, she encouraged my early fascination with Frankenstein’s medicine out of which this project grew, and she began teaching me how to write. Ever since that early time, Jeanne has advised and supported me through the innumerable difficulties of graduate school with her deep care, great wisdom, and a constant, unselfish eye on what has been best for me. It is fitting that she should be in this place of honor between my professional and personal acknowledgements. My dear friends have made this project a joy: Angie, Robert, Meg, Jenn, Zack, Jess, Kate, and Peter—thank you. Kelly and Joy read very rough drafts of these pages, offering their suggestions and excitement for the project in its earliest form. David and Helen made vi sure I had a steady stream of encouragement and English humo(u)r from abroad, and a place to stay in London. Gus called me frequently as I was writing in South Carolina to offer his company in the solitude and his wisdom for the course. Becca made sure the solitude was not constant. Erin injected levity and inspiration at every possible moment. Patrick and Sarah, Erin and Lukas have cared for me more like family than friends, and they are. Patrick I thank for his unbounded goodness. Erin I thank for her years of devoted friendship, more dear to me than I can say. Next I thank my brother and sister, Christopher and Meg, and my dearest cousin, Rebekah, whose friendship and care have sustained me ever since I can remember. I am lucky enough to have uncles and aunts—especially Carol, Craig, Ed, and Joanne—who have for many years had the goodness to ask about my scholarship at family gatherings; in 2008, Ed and Joanne made a generous contribution to my London study abroad fund. My wonderful parents, Lou and Jane, have supported this project—and every other academic endeavor I have undertaken since kindergarten—with their whole hearts and every other resource imaginable. I dedicate this work to them with love and my deepest gratitude. Finally, I thank Matt—reader, editor, husband, and friend—for being my mainstay while I wrote this—an act of tremendous patience, and of love. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS....................................................................................................ix CHAPTERS Introduction: The Regency Novel and the British Constitution....................................1 I. “Unaffected Prose”: Constitutional Maintenance and Austen’s Early Heroines.....30 II. Scottish Constitutions in Brunton’s Self-Control and Discipline............................86 III. “That Mixture of Character”: Constitutional Instability in Austen’s Sanditon...135 IV. Frankenstein, Romantic Medicine, and the End of the British Constitution.......183 BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................................................................................................227 viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1. Sensibility..............................................................................................................................6 2. BRITANNIA Between DEATH and the DOCTOR’S..........................................................9 3. Crazy Kate...........................................................................................................................60 4. Famine................................................................................................................................128 ix Introduction: The Regency Novel and the British Constitution And thinks’t thou, Britain, still to sit at ease, An island Queen amidst thy subject seas, While
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