Date of Award
2014
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
English
Abstract
This dissertation traces the role of unauthorized publication in the posthumous construction of British Romanticism as a literary movement. It argues that Romantic ideology emerged from conflicting claims about the nature of intellectual property and the circulation of political and artistic ideas, apparent in the texts and paratexts of pirated books. I examine how these disputes play out in reprints of the works by Percy Bysshe Shelley and Robert Southey that became cornerstones of radical culture. The dissertation goes on to discuss how the underground economy of literary piracy affected Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron's publication strategies, the significance of foreign reprints to copyright ideology and canon formation, and the relationship between unauthorized publication and the culture of appropriation apparent in radical periodicals and graphic satire. This study thus contributes to the history of the book and print culture in the early nineteenth century while illuminating the economic and legal underpinnings of the body of literature that came to be known as Romantic. It situates British Romanticism as an important moment in the ongoing discourse around intellectual property, emphasizing the contingent and ideologically fraught nature of any such concept.
Recommended Citation
Kolkey, Jason Isaac, "Pirates of Romanticism: Intellectual Property Ideology and the Birth of British Romanticism" (2014). Dissertations. 1275.
https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/1275
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Copyright Statement
Copyright © 2014 Jason Isaac Kolkey
