JoEllen on Romanticism and Enlightenment

A few thoughts …and apologies for subjecting you to my own hobbyhorses.I’m not sure if this is relevant anymore, but in the interest of furthering discussion I thought I would clarify why I objected to Chris’s definition of Romanticism. During the discussion, I thought he said that he traced Locke’s seventeenth-century ideas about property ownership and personhood through Scottish philosophers and British Romantic poetry and into American law. Although Locke certainly had a huge influence on American thought, I didn’t think Romantic poetry, in this instance, was being accurately represented. I study the Celtic poetry of the pre-Romantic period and Romantic fiction (i.e. Walter Scott and Maria Edgeworth). Poets like Oliver Goldsmith, Robert Burns, and James Macpherson wrote a lot about what humanity lost with the dissolution of common property (and groups like the Clan) and were very suspicious of property ownership, individuality, and the rise of commerce (3 huge topics).

The poets I study were, of course, hugely influential on the more canonical poets, such as Wordsworth, Blake, and Shelley.I also think it’s dangerous to generalize about the Enlightenment. The idea that there was a single Enlightenment has been challenge and largely dismantled in recent years by historians like J.G.A. Pocock. The Scottish Enlightenment and thinkers, such as Adam Smith and David Hume, have been sources scholars have turned to in this attempt to pluralize the Enlightenment. Although there are definitely intersections between Locke, Hume, and Smith, I also think they represent a different mode of Enlightenment thought. They drew much more heavily on Montesquieu than Locke. Also, Adam Smith and David Hume were skeptical about the idea of "progress." Hume called the individual nothing more than a “bundle of perceptions” and reason “a slave to the passions.” Although none of this helps clarify Chris’s definition (this is something beyond my paygrade and abilities), I want to do nothing more than complicate it. If I had more time, I would try and outline how property is valued differently among different Enlightenment thinkers. Ultimately, I may have misunderstood Chris’s definition of Romanticism, but it seemed to me that his definition ran the risk of creating Romantic poetry and Enlightenment thought as straw men for what I think is a really promising project about law and Romantic National Identity in the American context.There are several studies of Romantic national identity in the British context. Many of these studies draw on the idea of "internal colonialism," which also might be useful in the American context. I really admire Katie Trumpener’s _Bardic Nationalism_ (Princeton UP, 1997). I would also like to plug one of the most interesting pieces of criticism I have read in the past two years, Ian Baucom’s _Specters of the Atlantic: Finance Capital, Slavery, and the Philosophy of History_ (Duke UP, 2005). Baucom’s book finds intersections between Enlightenment philosophy, British law, and Romantic fiction, poetry, and art. I would have to do more work on Enlightenment thought’s legal legacy in America, but (although I have not spent much time with his work) Knud Haaksonssen has written on this topic. He has a collection called _A Culture of Rights_ that might be or particular interest.Thanks to Chris for this welcome intellectual break from course preparation and grading!!________________________________________<