Sites of Romantic Medievalism in the Writings of William Wordsworth, Germaine de Staël, and Lord George Gordon Byron
Open Access
- Author:
- Fisher, Kristen Anne
- Graduate Program:
- Comparative Literature
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 21, 2016
- Committee Members:
- Caroline Eckhardt, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Jonathan Eburne, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Anne Mccarthy, Committee Member
Daniel Purdy, Committee Member
Kathryn Grossman, Outside Member - Keywords:
- Romanticism
Medievalism
Material History
de Staël
Wordsworth
Byron - Abstract:
- ABSTRACT Identifying three versions of medievalisms that are associated with material culture, Sites of Romantic Medievalism probes intersections between historiography, material history, international politics, and literary form in select Romanticisms. As the transitional period between the ancient and the modern, the “Middle Ages” provided a foundation for Romantic progress narratives and articulations of modernity. Thus, when foreign destinations troubled accepted conceptions of the “medieval,” the authors under inquiry set out to reposition the medieval legacy in contemporary contexts in order to reconsider how best to identify and to enact progress both socio-politically and aesthetically. William Wordsworth confronted the failings of fanatical Republican historiography at the Grande Chartreuse on his Alpine tour in 1790. Employing anachronism, he situates medievalisms as a vital intervention in progressive reform and as the inspiration for his innovative poetics. Germaine de Staël’s Corinne, ou l’Italie frames the Italian “Moyen Age” as a testament to the Italian capacity to withstand hegemonic pressures, staging a medievalist intervention against modern tendencies either to repeat the past or to allow it to dominate the present. A melancholic rebellion against history is depicted in the 1816 compositions from Lord Byron’s exilic sojourn in Switzerland. Seeking an escape from the manipulative draw of the past, he represents Chillon, a medievalist monument, as a tentative model for living between resignation from the world and the self-abandonment of active historical engagement. Together, these Romantic medievalisms insist that material sites best represent the Middle Ages and best convey the medieval legacy to the modern world.