This dissertation focuses on a Romanticism that was profoundly global in scope, and examines the boundary-crossing literary techniques of William Wordsworth, Percy Shelley and Mary Shelley. These authors saw identity as delimited by artificial borders, and we witness in their work competitions between local and global, immediate and infinite, home and away – all formulated in spatial terms. This thesis argues that by using motifs and philosophies associated with “borderless” global travel, these authors radically destabilized definitions of nature, history, and the home. Wordsworth and the Shelleys saw the act of travel as essentially cosmopolitan, and frequently depicted spaces outside of familiar boundaries as being rich in imaginative vitality. Their fiction and poetry abounds with examples of North American primitivism, radical modes of transportation, and unknown territories sought by passionate explorers. Importantly, they often used such examples of foreignness to rejuvenate familiar spaces and knowledge – these were individuals determined to retain a certain amount of local integrity, or connection with the reluctant minds who feared alien contexts. As such, they were each aware of the fragility of embedded minds, and the connection of these minds to bordered historical contexts. Aware of the dangers posed by uninhibited imaginative movements, they depicted travel as an artistically seductive activity. Their impulse as authors was thus to use global experiences as a tool of literary expression, while refraining from a total abandonment of local responsibility. This dissertation therefore argues that the imaginative experience of space in the Romantic period was profoundly split, tethered on the one hand to custom and familiarity, and on the other aspiring to boundless global freedoms.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2008. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on September 3, 2008) Includes bibliographical references.

Th. Ph. D.--Faculty of arts--Zürich--University of Zürich, 1987.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Michigan.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Cornell University, 1911.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1921. / Vita. Published also without thesis note.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2009. / "Graduate Program in Literatures in English." Includes bibliographical references (p. 269-295).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of English, 2005. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Dec. 3, 2008). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-03, Section: A, page: 1010. Chair: Nicholas Mark Williams.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 1984. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

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