Populism, Gender, and Sympathy in the Romantic Novel

Populism, Gender, and Sympathy in the Romantic Novelis a richly historicized account that explores anxieties about crowds, fiction and disguise, women authors, and unstable gender roles. James P. Carson argues that the Romantic novel is a form individualizing in its address, which exploits popular materials and stretches formal boundaries in an attempt to come to terms with the masses. Informed by Bakhtin, Foucault, and Freud, this book offers fresh new readings of works by Sir Walter Scott, William Godwin, Matthew Lewis, Charles Robert Maturin, and Mary Shelley.

James P. Carson is Associate Professor of English at Kenyon College. He has published articles in the Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies. The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation. Criticism, and other journals and edited collections.