British Romanticism and Prison Reform (Transits: Literature, Thought & Culture, 1650-1850)

By: Jonas Cope

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Synopsis: In eighteenth-century Britain, criminals were routinely whipped, branded, hanged, or transported to America. Only in the last quarter of the century—with the War of American Independence and legal and sociopolitical challenges to capital punishment—did the criminal justice system change, resulting in the reformed prison, or penitentiary, meant to educate, rehabilitate, and spiritualize even hardened felons. This volume is the first to explore the relationship between historical penal reform and Romantic-era literary texts by luminaries such as Godwin, Keats, Byron, and Austen. The works examined here treat incarceration as ambiguous: prison walls oppress and reinforce the arbitrary power of legal structures but can also heighten meditation, intensify the imagination, and awaken the conscience. Jonas Cope skillfully traces the important ideological work these texts attempt: to reconcile a culture devoted to freedom with the birth of the modern prison system that presents punishment as a form of rehabilitation. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

Book Quality:: Publisher Quality
ISBN-13:: 9781684485352
Related ISBNs:: 9781684485383, 9781684485369
Publisher:: Bucknell University Press
Date of Addition:: 12/13/24
Copyrighted By:: Jonas Cope
Adult content:: No
Language:: English
Has Image Descriptions:: No
Categories:: History, Nonfiction, Romance, Literature and Fiction, Social Studies, Language Arts
Submitted By:: Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:: This is a copyrighted book.