The Reception and Translation of Foreign Cultures in British Late-Romantic Magazines, 1817-1830

This dissertation pursues a critical comparative analysis of the reception and translation of foreign cultures in four of the major Romantic literary magazines that dominated the cultural debate in Britain following the Battle of Waterloo: the New Monthly Magazine (est.1814), Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (est. 1817), the London Magazine (est.1820), and the Liberal (est. 1822). The project presents itself as a timely intervention in the fields of Romantic scholarship and periodical research by addressing a body of texts that have until now consistently remained under the critical radar. Despite their omnipresence in the Romantic public and cultural sphere, magazines have long failed to attract the scholarly attention they deserved. Since the advent of New Historicism, however, periodicals have increasingly come to be part of considerations of Romanticism. Yet, to understand the workings of the late-Romantic magazine, this dissertation argues, one must account for the large presence of foreign literatures it carried. Like magazines as a medium, this cross-cultural aspect of much Romantic literature is also overlooked in most scholarly work in the field. A recent transnational turn is countering that current by addressing the many instances of border-crossing influence, exchange, and appropriation. Following Saglia's (2019) pioneering monograph, this dissertation brings the two streams together and investigates the transnational aspect of late-Romantic literary magazines. It argues that magazines are an essential part of the Romantic literary system and that translation and cultural transfer were crucial processes in the make-up of these publications. The dissertation illustrates how foreign literatures were a key commercial factor in the competitive magazine market place, while also proving to be of capital importance for the definitions of identity that the different periodicals developed. Both conservative and progressive magazines would engage with translation and cultural transfer in the process of defining their own projections of literary traditions and national identities. Looking at instances of cultural transfer in literary periodicals allows us to trace the Romantic discourses that gave form to our present conceptions of nation, literature, and identity. Additionally, this transnational take also shows that radically different projections existed simultaneously, and competed commercially and ideologically within the volatile medium of the monthly magazine. This project thus contributes to the larger movement in the field which aims to refute received ideas of British Romanticism by emphasizing its manyfold entanglements across different cultures.

Jaar van publicatie:2021

Toegankelijkheid:Closed