Slavery and the Romantic Imagination. Debbie Lee
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Slavery and the Romantic Imagination
Slavery and the Romantic Imagination
DEBBIE LEE
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
Philadelphia
Copyright © 2002 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First paperback edition 2004
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lee, Debbie.
Slavery and the Romantic imagination / Debbie Lee.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-8122-3636-X (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-8122-1882-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. English literature—19th century—History and criticism. 2. Slavery in literature. 3. Literature and society—Great Britain—History—19th century. 4. Romanticism—Great Britain. 5. Africa—In literature. 6. Blacks in literature. I. Title.
PR468.S55 L44 2002
| 820.9'355—dc21 | 2001041542 |
To my families
Contents
Part I: History and Imagination
1 British Slavery and African Exploration: The Written Legacy
Part II: Hazards and Horrors in the Slave Colonies
3 Distant Diseases: Yellow Fever in Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
4 Intimacy as Imitation: Monkeys in Blake’s Engravings for Stedman’s Narrative
Part III: Fascination and Fear in Africa
5 African Embraces: Voodoo and Possession in Keats’s Lamia
Part IV: Facing Slavery in Britain
7 Proximity’s Monsters: Ethnography and Anti-Slavery Law in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Illustrations
1. Detail, Thomas Clarkson, 1789
2. Blake, “Europe Supported by Africa & America”
3. Blake, “Mecco & Kishee Kishee Monkeys”
4. Blake, “Quato & Saccawinkee Monkeys”
5. Stubbs, Green Monkey
6. Blake, illustration for Gay’s Fables
7. Camper’s “facial angles”
8. Aldrovandi, De quadrupedibus
9. Aldrovandi, De quadrupedibus
10. Krug, The Fall of Man
11. Bruegel, “Zwei Affen”
12. Goya, Los Caprichos
13. Tyson, Orang-Outang
14. Blake, “Coromantyn Free Negro”
15. Blake, “Private Marine”
16. Blake, frontispiece, Visions
17. Stedman, watercolor, 1776
18. Barlow, “Manner of Sleeping”
19. Blake, “Group of Negros”
20. Blake, “Negro hung alive”
21. Blake, “Sculls”
22. Blake, “Family of Negro”
23. Blake, “Breaking on the Rack”
24. Blake, “Surinam Planter”
25. Blake, “March thro’ a swamp”
26. Blake, “Flagellation of Female Slave”
27. Blake, “Skinning of Aboma Snake”
28. Blake, “Graman Quacy”
29. Africa, Speed’s Prospect
30. Sayer, New and Correct Map of Africa
31. Sayer, New Map of Africa
32. Sayer, Africa with all its States
33. Africa, Rennell’s Geographical System
34. Brookes, New Map of Africa
35. “Narina, a Young Gonaquais”