This dissertation examines the Hunt circle's public activities and its historical
significance in terms of public-sphere theory proposed by Jurgen Harbermas. Recent
studies on Romantic literature have attended to how Romantic writers' literary practices
were conditioned upon their contemporary history, as opposed to the traditional notion
of Romanticism based on an affirmation of individual creativity. Although these studies
meaningfully highlight the historicity inherent in seemingly individualistic Romantic
texts, they have frequently failed to assess the way in which this historicity of Romantic
texts is connected to Romantic writers' own will to engage with public issues by placing
too much emphasis on how history determines individuals' activities. In this sense, the
notion of public sphere offers a productive theoretical framework by which to read the
historicity of Romantic literature without disavowing an individual writer's role in
historical proceedings, since it underscores a historical process in which a communal
interaction between individuals constitutes a progress of history. By focusing on this significance of public-sphere theory, this dissertation suggests that the Hunt circle,
whose members' communal literary practices were aimed at achieving the public good
in the tumultuous post-Napoleonic era, serves as a model of this process-based historical
theorization.
Chapter I examines the significance of public-sphere theory in assessing how the
Hunt circle engaged in its contemporary history. Chapter II elucidates the nature of the
public sphere that Leigh Hunt's and his circle's activities created and discusses the
problems that this public sphere faced in the historical context of the early nineteenth
century. Chapter III shows how the Hunt circle exposed a sense of anxiety and instability
in the face of the commercialized literary public sphere by examining John Keats's
literary practices. Chapter IV highlights Percy Bysshe Shelley's public ideal which
aimed for a unified and inclusive public sphere beyond class boundaries and traces how
this ideal was frustrated in the ensuing historical proceedings. Chapter V deals with the
final phase of the Hunt circle and its disintegration by observing the ways in which Mary
Shelley memorialized the Hunt circle for the feminized reading public of the Victorian
period. By illuminating the nature of the Hunt circle's activities for the public, this
dissertation ultimately aims to reassess how literary intellectuals in the Romantic period
struggled to sustain the traditional calling of men of letters in their contemporary public
sphere.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2010-05-7822 |
| Date | 2010 May 1900 |
| Creators | Min, Byoung Chun |
| Contributors | Hoagwood, Terence |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
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