This study explores the western Romantic period as a transition between the medieval “open body” and the modern “closed body.” It focuses on “closing body” phenomena such as “mesmerism” (i.e. animal magnetism), somnambulism, substance abuse, and the “second-self,” including notions of the subconscious and the trope of gothic Doppelgängers. This study draws from many pieces of western Romantic literature but is most centered around James Hogg’s 1824 The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. This new reading of Hogg’s novel suggests a core theme of body anxiety, rather than theological dispute.

The pamphleteers popularized the mythology of despotism by denouncing lettres de cachet and other supposed abuses of power that had little effect on most people. Historians like Funck-Brentano may be correct in arguing that the government was really moderate at this time, but it is important to show that radical propagandists were quite successful in convincing Frenchmen that thousands of innocent victims huddled miserably in <em >cachots for having inflamed the despotic passions of a minister. Moreover the prisons that were mythological for most Frenchmen had been terribly real for Brissot, Carra, Gorsas and many other writers, and this consideration also suggests the importance of the biographical approach. The Bastille may have been nearly empty, but it was a powerful symbol, effectively exploited by pamphleteers who dealt in symbols, declamation and distortions of political realities. They were highly successful in dominating public opinion, which exerted an influence on events that has been unappreciated in relation to the weak, irresolute rule of Louis XVI. The thesis attempts to develop this interprettion of the political importance of radical propaganda with reference to the scientific, financial and literary history of the period. It may seem weak on some ponts of these specialized fields, but it is hoped that it assimilates them successfully in its main attempt to contribute to an understanding of the last years of the Ancien Regime: its analysis of the character of radical propaganda in relation to the men who created it.