Science, Politics, and Friendship in the Works of Thomas Lovell Beddoes

Informationen zum Autor Ute Berns is professor of English literature at the University of Hamburg. Klappentext This study offers an incisive new reading of the romantic playwright Thomas Lovell (1803-1849) Beddoes's work as shaped by the contemporary discourses of radical politics, life science, and gender. Reappraising his opus magnum Death's Jest Book in a context powerfully defined by both English and German romantic culture, this study unveils Beddoes's complex vision of history before the backdrop of the writer's fascination both with Early Modern culture and with proto-modernist forms of aesthetic experimentation. Inhaltsverzeichnis Acknowledgements Introduction Part 1: Discursive and Tropological Preliminaries 1. Discursive Horizons in Beddoes's Letters 2. Visual Figuration and Performativity in Death's Jest-Book Part 2: The Politics of Revolutionary Bonapartism 3. The Republican Promise of Revolutionary Bonapartism 4. Roman Ideals in "Unroman Times" 5. Caesarist Visions of History Part 3: The Radical Politics of Friendship 6. Friendship and Fraternity in Crisis 7. Friendship(-)Haunting Sovereignty 8. Re-signifying the Friend Part 4: History and the Sciences of Life 9. The Discourse of "Life" in "Squats on a Toad-Stool" 10. Life Science! Natural History and Politics in Death's Jest-Book Part 5: Towards a New Theater 11. Performing Genres and the Uses of Illegitimacy Bibliography

Auteur

By Ute Berns

Texte du rabat

This study offers an incisive new reading of the romantic playwright Thomas Lovell (1803-1849) Beddoes's work as shaped by the contemporary discourses of radical politics, life science, and gender. Reappraising his opus magnum Death's Jest Book in a context powerfully defined by both English and German romantic culture, this study unveils Beddoes's complex vision of history before the backdrop of the writer's fascination both with Early Modern culture and with proto-modernist forms of aesthetic experimentation.

Contenu

Acknowledgements Introduction Part 1: Discursive and Tropological Preliminaries 1. Discursive Horizons in Beddoes's Letters 2. Visual Figuration and Performativity in Death's Jest-Book Part 2: The Politics of Revolutionary Bonapartism 3. The Republican Promise of Revolutionary Bonapartism 4. Roman Ideals in "Unroman Times" 5. Caesarist Visions of History Part 3: The Radical Politics of Friendship 6. Friendship and Fraternity in Crisis 7. Friendship(-)Haunting Sovereignty 8. Re-signifying the Friend Part 4: History and the Sciences of Life 9. The Discourse of "Life" in "Squats on a Toad-Stool" 10. Life Science, Natural History and Politics in Death's Jest-Book Part 5: Towards a New Theater 11. Performing Genres and the Uses of Illegitimacy Bibliography