Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 11-15-2013 12:00 AM Dark Sympathy: Desiring the Other in Godwin, Coleridge, and Shelley Jeffrey T. King The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Tilottama Rajan The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in English A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Doctor of Philosophy © Jeffrey T. King 2013 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation King, Jeffrey T., "Dark Sympathy: Desiring the Other in Godwin, Coleridge, and Shelley" (2013). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 1702. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/1702 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. DARK SYMPATHY: DESIRING THE OTHER IN GODWIN, COLERIDGE, AND SHELLEY (Thesis format: Monograph) by Jeffrey Todd King Graduate Program in English A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario, Canada © Jeffrey Todd King 2013 ABSTRACT Dark Sympathy: Desiring the Other in Godwin, Coleridge, and Shelley explores how Romantic writers took up and responded to eighteenth-century discourses of sympathy in the context of an increasingly influential materialist epistemology and ontology. In its formulation by David Hume and Adam Smith, sympathy plays a central role in society, using the imagination to smooth over uncertainties about the status of the self and its relation to the world that might otherwise paralyze human activity. Sympathy therefore carries a twofold purpose: on the one hand, it provides a feasible substitute for personal identity; on the other hand, it facilitates social interaction. While these ends are not incompatible in Hume’s work, given his pragmatic suspension of any overly idealistic desire, the effect of an emerging materialist discourse upon English Romantic writing is to widen the representational gap between the self and the external world. In its insistence upon a hard distinction between human ideas about the world and its potentially inaccessible true constitution, the threat of materiality conflicts with the socializing conceit of the sympathetic imagination. If sympathy is the key vehicle for social cohesion in the modern era, then “dark” sympathy recalls the rejected or unmanageable strands of desire for the other. The Romantic fascination with negative affects, anti- or counter- social thought, and limit-experiences prompts them to find means of representing these transcendent desires. Where the dissertation’s first two chapters undertake an intellectual history of sympathy and materialism, the last three chapters on William Godwin, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Mary Shelley read their works as attempting to sublimate this conflict by experimenting with forms of what Jean-Luc Nancy calls “community,” which is the bare ii relation of being-with-others uninformed by any common bond, as a substitute for the social harmony implied by sympathy. In addition to participating in the growing critical interest in the cultural and historical evolution of sympathy, Dark Sympathy attempts to contribute to the scholarship on ethics and literature by exploring the sources and figurations that have contributed to a more radical understanding of alterity. Keywords Sympathy, materiality, William Godwin, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, community, deconstruction, psychoanalysis, ethics, desire in literature iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A persistent image in this study is that of the solitary sailor adrift upon a stormy sea, desperately looking for stable ground in the chaotic face of a nascent modernity. I am deeply grateful for the family, friends, and mentors that have helped me to avoid making the metaphor my own – or have drawn me back when things began to look bleak. From the beginning of my time at Western, Prof. Tilottama Rajan and Prof. Joel Faflak have been outstanding sources of intellectual inspiration and practical wisdom. I am grateful for the guidance and advice they have given me throughout and also to have them as models for thinking about the world in a way that matters. Thanks also to the members of my examining committee, Professors Vivasvan Soni, Chris Bundock, Steven Bruhm, and Jan Plug, for encouraging, gracious, and challenging questions and suggestions that will help me to become a better scholar and will make this work stronger. On campus and off of it, members of this academic community have been endlessly helpful and supportive. Professors Chris Keep, Alison Conway, Mary Helen McMurran, and Mark McDayter have in innumerable ways ensured that my sojourn was a happy and stimulating one. Crossing paths semi-regularly with Leanne Trask, Vivian Foglton, and Beth McIntosh made life in the Department a pleasure. Friends have also been a sustaining presence in this work both for my family and myself. I am humbled to know such fine people as Sherrin Berezowsky and Patrick Hughes, Shalon and Jason Noble, David Hickey and Erica Leighton, David Drysdale, Gord Barentsen, Josh Lambier, Rebekah Lamb, Brett and Alicia Roscoe, and so many others. Special thanks to Sherrin and Shalon – co-conspirators in the “DA” (Dissertator’s Anonymous, or iv Dumbledore’s Army) group – for giving me added motivation to finish and great encouragement throughout. I am also thankful for the consistent interest and support of my friends at New London Community and, now in Edmonton, at Millcreek Christian Fellowship. Family members, both in London and elsewhere around the world, have been invaluable. Jay (Dad) and Margaret (Mom) Gurnett, Jen and Andrew (and Roger, Mirabelle, Lachlyn, and Cordelia), Nate and Sarah (and Aurora, Claire, and Walter), Dan and Meg, and Luke; Stan (Dad) and Becky (Mom) King, Ash and Pete (and Nate and Luke), Steph, and Matt: thank you for your consistent love and care for my family and me. Living with and near some of you over the last few years was a wonderful and unforgettable gift, and discussing my work with many of you has been so helpful. As paradoxical as it might sound, I could not have completed this work without the contagious curiosity, pulsating imaginations, and bottomless love of my kids: Eliot, Lucy, Annie, Moira, and Phoebe. You turned my world on its head and have given me a new and better way to live in it. I can’t wait to wander in “the wilds of literature” with you. Above all, I need to thank my best friend, inspiration, and partner-in-life: my wife, Ruth. Thank you for making it possible for me to do this (and that’s a phrase that understates the vast significance of your support almost to the point of inaccuracy). If life sometimes seems like walking around without a light (Isaiah 50:10), then I’m glad to be holding on to you as we’re guided through the dark. What an adventure! Finally, I would like to acknowledge the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, which funded this research. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................................. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................................................... iv PREFACE ..................................................................................................................................................... 1 The Emergence of Modern Sympathy ................................................................................................................. 4 Desire in Sympathy ...................................................................................................................................................... 8 Framing Sympathy.................................................................................................................................................... 15 Towards a Theory of Dark Sympathy............................................................................................................... 20 Chapter 1: The Dark Side of Sympathy ......................................................................................... 30 Sources of the Conflict in Sympathy .................................................................................................................. 33 Descartes: Controlling the Outside ...................................................................................................... 34 Hobbes: Desiring Stability ....................................................................................................................... 40 The Conflict of Sympathetic Desire in Hume and Smith .......................................................................... 43 The Transcendent Impulse in David Hume ...................................................................................... 46 Adam Smith and the Social Horizon of Sympathy ......................................................................... 52 Anxiety and the Limits of Sympathetic Desire .............................................................................................