Wallbank, Adrian J. (2008) Political, religious, and philosophical mentoring of the Romantic period : the dialogue genre. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This thesis examines the strategies, diversity and evolution of political, religious, and
philosophical dialogues between the publication of Sir William Jones’s The Principles of
Government (1782) and Robert Southey’s Colloquies on Society (1829). The dialogue genre
during the Romantic period has received scant critical attention, and little is known about its
evolution between the ‘death’ of the ‘Dialogues of the Dead’ style towards the end of the
eighteenth-century and the satirical and literary innovations demonstrated in the dialogues of
Peacock and Landor. This thesis elucidates the very significant changes that occurred in
dialogue writing during this period in relation to wider contemporaneous issues concerning
the Revolution Controversy, evangelical ‘enthusiasm’, reading audiences, the formation of
class identities, the diffusion of knowledge, and the burgeoning of the novel to name but a
few. Central to my argument is the notion that dialogue enacts a form of mentoring – a
procedure that is intended to either directly or indirectly facilitate a ‘conversion’ within the
reader, (and which ultimately becomes subverted only in satire). Such tactics go to the heart of
debates concerning education, didacticism, and the reading process itself. Dialogue’s
encapsulation of the primal constituent in communication - linguistic interchange - raises
fundamental questions regarding the exchangeability of ideas, power relations and ideological
manipulation, and as such, I look at how writers and propagandists used dialogue to bolster or
critique various ideological standpoints, whilst constantly interrogating the many
philosophical and textual problems that the genre poses. I argue that such questions, coupled
with the increasing sophistication and interpretative capabilities of reading audiences, made
the didacticism of the mentoring scenario untenable by the 1820s. However, I conclude that
philosophical dialogue becomes an ‘impossible’ venture without some form of direction and
coercion, and following this realization, the satirizing of philosophical debate and the process
of dialogue itself became a more viable way of dialogue writing.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PR English literature
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Jones, William, Sir, 1746-1794. Principles of government, Southey, Robert, 1774-1843. Sir Thomas More, Dialogues, English, Communication in literature, Mentoring in literature, English literature -- 18th century -- History and criticism, English literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism
Official Date:	October 2008
Dates:	Date Event October 2008 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Kooy, Michael John, 1969-
Format of File:	pdf
Extent:	257 leaves
Language:	eng

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