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17 Mired in Print: Romantic Writers and Caricature
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Published:December 2022
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Abstract
This chapter presents a radically new perspective on the Romantic-era visual portrayal of writers and writing. Instead of focusing on the familiar genre of the individual literary portrait and its static iconography of authorship (the carefully placed pen or book, the inspired expression, the classical or pastoral setting), the chapter turns to the rumbustious imagery of caricature to locate a more dynamic and collective picture of literary print culture in action. The chapter shows that caricature undermined the Romantic cult of genius and celebrity by focussing on the material difficulties of writing and the networks of print and patronage which determined an author’s reputation and success. Caricatures are therefore illuminating historical documents which cast new light on the Romantic idea of solitary and transcendent genius, and on the highly conflicted political, social and cultural contexts within which this new and enduring ideology of authorship emerged. The careers of Romantic authors including Robert Southey, Lord Byron and Walter Scott are re-examined and re-framed through a series of close readings of caricatures by James Gillray, George and Robert Cruikshank, and Charles Williams.
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