Sexuality and the Culture of Sensibility in the British Romantic Era

“Lively and feisty . . . Nagle truly shines in spotting ambiguously sexualized language in his chosen texts and contexts that range from the seemingly innocent to the outright bawdy. This is the real achievement, and the meticulous attention to detail on this level of the analysis produces readings that at their best are quite simply dazzling . . . [with] brilliant readings . . . One does not have to accept the larger argument about the disciplinary tendencies of Romanticism or Wordsworth to appreciate the attention to linguistic detail here or admire the stunning results Nagle derives from it. Over and over again, his discerning eye finds heretofore undiscovered queer moments in some of the most canonical, familiar, and commented-upon works of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century British literature, and he leaves us wondering how we managed not to see these things before. Nagle not only makes the tradition seem perfectly queer, he also makes it new, surprising, and exciting, and for this his book more than repays the reading.”–European Romantic Review “Theoretically informed and lucidly written, it offers an invigoratingly original reading of the covert incorporation of sensibility’s affective energies into Romantic aesthetics… Sexuality and the Culture of Sensibility is a fascinating book, which reveals how the cultural history of emotion might unsettle conventional critical periodizations and categories… Nagle’s long Age of Sensibility productively interrupts our ossified cultural chronologies. Reorganizing literary periodization in terms of the history of affect is a promising way to reconceptualize modernity. While the well-established literary periods will surely retain their tenacious grip, Nagle’s book testifies to the usefulness of attending to the continuities and incorporations that underlie cultural change.”–Eighteenth-Century Life“Expand[s] and complicate[s] our understanding of historical sexualities by taking up the case of perversity, here understood as any form of erotic experience unaffiliated with productivity—and especially reproductivity… Nagle analyzes texts that represent relationships rich in sympathetic and erotic possibilities, and in each instance he finds accompanying anxieties about incipient perversity… In a particularly persuasive chapter, Nagle finds significant resonances linking Wordsworth’s denunciation of Pope’s poetic diction with more overtly phobic expressions, notably Hazlitt’s professed disgust over effeminacy and over the restored edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets…readers will find [this work] illuminating.”–Keats-Shelley Journal“Nagle’s claims for ‘Sensibility’s’ importance in the making of modern cultural identity are both impressive and highly transferable…The Austen and Shelley chapters are the most compelling uses of the book’s premise.  Indeed, Nagle’s reading of Shelley’s Frankenstein is one of the most convincing I have encountered…this is an exciting book and one that deserves to be read and taught.”— Studies in Romanticism (Elizabeth Fay, University of Massachusetts, Boston) 

“This stimulating and comprehensive book…leads to the introduction of new theoretical perspectives in contemporary literary criticism….Nagle offers quite fascinating and exciting interpretations… Taking detailed textual studies and examinations of their historical background together, the book pursues reciprocal workings of ‘content’ and ‘form’ leading to the performative impetus produced by the ‘text’ itself…Nagle’s choice of promiscuous ‘Sensibility’ is successful in the entire discussion… The book as a whole is quite suggestive, challenging, and surprisingly inclusive as well.  Nagle demonstrates innovative models for criticism…and his book should be a threshold to ‘new’ literary criticism based on queer theory.”–Studies in English Literature“The revelations of this book come through close readings which consistently show, with stunning precision, how Romanticism came to incorporate Sensibility. Nagle proves courageously willing to theorize the importance of this encounter, opening new avenues for understanding sexuality, and particularly pleasure, within British Romanticism…. Nagle’s argument is analogous [to Michael Gamer’s Romanticism and the Gothic], and deserves to effect a similar sea-change in the field: his work should give us the capacity to think differently about the source materials, and therefore the ideological and aesthetic investments, of British Romanticism.”–David Sigler, University of Idaho, British Association for Romantic Studies“Christopher Nagle’s Sexuality and the Culture of Sensibility in the British Romantic Era reminds us of the tidiness of our literary histories and the steep costs of such tidiness…I admire the courage and reach of this book, one that troubles the ground of Romanticism on numerous fronts.  We will have to continue to re-imagine its chronology, its protagonists, along with the queerness of its central tropes.  Such courage is all the more to be applauded in a first book…Nagle’s study offers a timely and thoughtful intervention in Romantic literary studies.”–Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net 

The Pleasures of Proximity * ‘The Heart’s Best Blood’:  Sterne and the Promiscuous Life of Sensibility * From Trembling to Tranquility: Women Writers and Wordsworth’s Pleasure Principle * Epistemologies of the Romantic Closet: Shakespeare, Sexuality, and the Myth of Genius * The Social Work of Persuasion: Austen and the New Sensorium * Prometheus vs. the Man of Feeling:  Frankenstein, Sensibility, and the Uncertain Future of Romanticism (An Allegory for Literary History) * Sentimental Journeys: The Afterlife of Feeling in Landon and Tennyson