Henry Crabb Robinson in Germany: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Life Writing

(Hardback)

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Henry Crabb Robinson (1775-1867) spent five years in Germany (1800-1805) and became deeply informed about its Romantic literature and philosophy, then at its height in that country. In the course of his enthusiastic embrace of the German language and culture, Robinson built up an intellectual and literary capital that he would draw on for the rest of his long life. The main thrust of this critical and biographical study is to demonstrate that Robinson is an important nineteenth-century life writer, and that his autobiographical writings, a large portion of which are still in manuscript, deserve to be taken seriously by students and scholars of autobiography, and to be published in a new edition. Since to date no one has focused on Robinson the life writer, this study of Robinson's German years draws on his published letters, diaries, and reminiscences as well as some manuscript material.

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Henry Crabb Robinson (1775-1867) is perhaps best known for his profiles of prominent men of letters in his, but Stelzig (English, State U. of New York at Geneseo) argues that he deserves to be considered in his own right as an important 'life writer' (i.e. a producer of writings that inscribe subjectivity, which includes autobiographies, diaries, journals, memoirs, and letters) of the 19th century, even though only a small part of his writings have yet to appear in print. In this work, Stelzig offers a portrait of Robinson as life writer for the five years he spent in Germany (1800-1805), drawing on both published and unpublished materials. * Book News, Inc. *

Author Bio

Eugene Stelzig is distinguished teaching professor of English at SUNY Geneseo.