Interchapter: The Staring Nation

Tom Duggett*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book or Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

This Interchapter (originally the conclusion) discusses the “Gothic” design of The Recluse in the context of Romantic visuality, developing ideas about the connection between visual technologies such as the panorama and diorama and “Gothic” subjectivity in the Romantic period. I discuss texts including The White Doe of Rylstone (1815), sonnets from The River Duddon (1820), “Composed upon Westminster Bridge,” and the Guide to the Lakes (1810–35). Reflecting back on the visual register of previous chapters, I argue for Wordsworth and the Lake Poets as fully engaged in the process by which Britain, with its “love for shows,” was transformed into what Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s The Siamese Twins (1831) called “the Staring Nation.”.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationGothic Romanticism
Subtitle of host publicationWordsworth, Architecture, Politics, Form
PublisherPalgrave Macmillan
Pages197-213
Number of pages17
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Publication series

NamePalgrave Gothic
ISSN (Print)2634-6214
ISSN (Electronic)2634-6222

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