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Full text release has been delayed at the author's request until May 13, 2025

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“Every Family Might Also Be Called a State”: Incest and Politics in the Romantic Era

Fernandez, Emmeline
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1587656293042995

Abstract Details

2020, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, English.
Literary representations of incest occur with marked frequency during the Romantic era—roughly equating to the years between 1780 and 1830. Much of this period overlaps with that of the tumultuous socio-historical timeline of the French Revolution, in which extensive reforms to both family and state authority in France were seen and debated across the Channel in England. So, too, was this a period in which the English revealed an intense focus on kinship and marriage alliance as a form of achieving social and economic security. This dissertation investigates the way in which these socio-political concerns are interrogated through the incest motif—a motif itself innately invested in transgression as it portrays kinship bonds that refuse to be constrained by societal laws or expectations. I provide close readings of the incest motif in more than one dozen texts including the male Romantic poets Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, gothic writer Matthew Lewis, dramatist James Cobb, and the novelists Frances Burney, Mary Shelley, Ann Radcliffe, and Mary Robinson. In so doing, this dissertation reveals that this politicized motif took on a wide variety of forms that cannot be encapsulated by a single category or political ideology. Rather, I demonstrate that representing politics through incest is a feature of Romantic-era authorship and one which reveals an underlying moral mode for conceiving of one’s highly individualized political ideology.
Clare Simmons (Advisor)
Jacob Risinger (Advisor)
David Brewer (Committee Member)
235 p.
Literature
romanticism; incest; french revolution; politics; eighteenth century

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Fernandez, E. (2020). “Every Family Might Also Be Called a State”: Incest and Politics in the Romantic Era [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1587656293042995

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Fernandez, Emmeline. “Every Family Might Also Be Called a State”: Incest and Politics in the Romantic Era. 2020. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1587656293042995.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Fernandez, Emmeline. "“Every Family Might Also Be Called a State”: Incest and Politics in the Romantic Era." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1587656293042995

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.