The Shadow of Death: Literature, Romanticism and the Subject of Punishment

Abstract

Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi Abbreviations xiii Introduction: Cain's Legacy, Nietzsche's Complaint 1 Chapter 1: Horrors of My Dreams 11 Chapter 2: Uncertain Providence and Certain Punishment: Hannah More 34 Chapter 3: Shuddering o'er the Grave: Wordsworth, Poetry, and the Punishment of Death 55 Chapter 4: Jane Austen, the Romantic Novel, and the Importance of Being Wrong 81 Chapter 5: Coleridge, Shelley, and the Poetics of Conscience 115 Chapter 6: The Two Abolitions 142 Coda: The Culture of the Death Penalty 168 Notes 177 Selected Bibliography 193 Index 203