The Domestication of Genius: Biography and the Romantic Poet - Hardcover

North, Julian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199571988 ISBN 13: 9780199571987

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2010

Synopsis

This is a book about the biographical afterlives of the Romantic poets and the creation of literary biography as a popular form. It focuses on the Lives of six major poets of the period: Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Felicia Hemans, and Letitia Landon, published from the 1820s, by Thomas Moore, Mary Shelley, Thomas De Quincey, and others. It situates these within the context of the development of biography as a genre from the 1780s to the 1840s. Starting with Johnson, Boswell, and female collective Lives, it looks at how the market success of biography was built on its representation and publication of domestic life. In the 1820s and 30s biographers 'domesticated' Byron, Shelley, and other poets by situating them at home, opening up their (often scandalous) private lives to view, and bringing readers into intimate contact with greatness.

Biography was an influential transmitter of the myth of 'the Romantic poet', as the self-creating, masculine genius, but it also posed one of the first important challenges to that myth, by revealing failures in domestic responsibility that were often seen as indicative of these writers' inattention to the needs of the reader. The Domestication of Genius is the most comprehensive account to date of the shaping of the Romantic poets by biography in the nineteenth-century.

Written in a lively and accessible style, it casts new light on the literary culture of the 1830s and the transition between Romantic and Victorian conceptions of authorship. It offers a powerful re-evaluation of Romantic literary biography, of major biographers of the period, and of the posthumous reputations of the Romantic poets.

About this title

About the Author

Julian North received her BA and D. Phil. from the University of Oxford. She is a lecturer in nineteenth-century English literature at the University of Leicester, having previously been a lecturer in the English Departments of the University of Reading and De Montfort University. She is the editor of volume 11 and co-editor of volume 20 of The Works of Thomas De Quincey, 21 volumes, General Editor, Grevel Lindop (Pickering and Chatto, 2000 -2003), and the author of De Quincey Reviewed: Thomas De Quincey's Critical Reception, 1821-1994 (Camden House/ Boydell and Brewer, 1997). She has also published on Romantic auto/biography, literary tourism, screen adaptations of the novels of Jane Austen, and nineteenth-century opium literature.

Review

"Superbly researched and written...Packed equally with valuable insights and engaging gossip, North's book will find readers well beyond the literary students and faculty at whom it is primarily directed. Highly recommended." --Choice

"[A] compelling argument." --Biography

"North offers a compelling case for the importance of biographical writing in forming the identities of an author." --New Books on Literature 19

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0199571988
• ISBN 13: 9780199571987
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 268