Book contents
- Romanticism, Republicanism, and the Swiss Myth
- Cambridge Studies in Romanticism
- Romanticism, Republicanism, and the Swiss Myth
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- A Note on the Text
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 “Not / A Pastoral Fable”: Republicanism, Liberalism, and the Swiss Myth
- Chapter 2 Comparative Republicanisms: The Swiss Myth in Eighteenth-Century Britain
- Chapter 3 Revising Republicanism: Revolutionary-Period Travel Writing on Switzerland
- Chapter 4 Switzerland No More: 1798 and the Romantic Imagination
- Chapter 5 Switzerland in Miniature: Wordsworth’s “Visionary Mountain Republic”
- Chapter 6 Restoration Republicanism: The Swiss Myth After 1815
- Coda John Ruskin’s Switzerland
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies In Romanticism
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 December 2022
- Romanticism, Republicanism, and the Swiss Myth
- Cambridge Studies in Romanticism
- Romanticism, Republicanism, and the Swiss Myth
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- A Note on the Text
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 “Not / A Pastoral Fable”: Republicanism, Liberalism, and the Swiss Myth
- Chapter 2 Comparative Republicanisms: The Swiss Myth in Eighteenth-Century Britain
- Chapter 3 Revising Republicanism: Revolutionary-Period Travel Writing on Switzerland
- Chapter 4 Switzerland No More: 1798 and the Romantic Imagination
- Chapter 5 Switzerland in Miniature: Wordsworth’s “Visionary Mountain Republic”
- Chapter 6 Restoration Republicanism: The Swiss Myth After 1815
- Coda John Ruskin’s Switzerland
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies In Romanticism
Summary
The introduction argues for a relation between the Swiss myth, Romanticism, and the development of modern liberalism. I notably explain and define the terms used in the book, including negative versus positive liberty, republicanism versus liberalism, and Ancient versus Modern liberty. This brings me to a more detailed discussion of the concepts of liberty, popular sovereignty, and representation in the writings of liberal Swiss intellectuals Benjamin Constant, Germaine de Stäel, and, more briefly, Rousseau. His Letters Written from the Mountain, published half-a-century before Constant’s famous speech, already accepts the passing away of Ancient Liberty, and embraces a modern, representative system in which private virtues supersede public ones and not everyone can participate in the res publica. The Genevan Citizen’s demystification of his own native republic and of Swiss republicanism in general attests to the constructed, ideologically-marked nature of the representations that I explore in the rest of this book. The fact that readers and writers wanted to continue believing in Rousseau’s community of equals in the Alps long after he had stopped doing so speaks to the strength of this Romantic desire, and to the lasting power of the Swiss myth.
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- Romanticism, Republicanism, and the Swiss Myth , pp. 1 - 14Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022