Article The Legibility of Liber Amoris James Treadwell McGill University 1 Every revolution needs its ancien rgime

including the bloodless u!risings that !eriodically ri!!le through the academy" #n the world of $omantic studies %or $omantic&!eriod studies as they have since become' the now orthodo( methodologies and strategies broadly defined as )istoricism set themselves the tas* of e(!osing and so overturning something that came to be *nown %following Jerome McGann' as +the $omantic ideology+" The subse,uent story of this insurgency-at least in the Anglo&American academy-is !retty well *nown and need not be rehearsed again" )istoricity has become the guarantee against re!roducing $omantic ideologies. and this is based on !olarised conce!tions of the nature of literary artifacts or at least of their ontology" According to the revolutionaries the ancien rgime-as ancient as /ant-held that te(ts e(isted in some distinctly aesthetic s!ace and therefore %in McGann+s memorable formulation' +that !oetry or even consciousness can set one free of the ruins of history and culture+" 011 )istory was to thwart such sus!iciously transcendentalised conce!tions by the density of its te(ture the intricacy of its causal relations the s!ecificity of its account of what goes into the !roduction and circulation of literary matter" #t situates literature as one among many interwoven strands of cultural discourse2 hence the currency of monogra!hs about $omantic economics $omantic medicine $omantic geogra!hy $omantic law" 3 The borders between te(ts and their environments have thus become !oints of !eculiarly intense critical interest" )ere where the abstract formalities of te(tual inter!retation meet the verifiable matter of historical scholarshi! the critical reorientations demanded by historicist a!!roaches become most visible" The attac* on $omantic ideology a!!ears almost as an attem!t to drag literary artifacts over the border from aesthetics into %usually' !olitics" A case in !oint might be 4icholas $oe+s reading of /eats+s +Autumn+ ode as a !oem about 5eterloo" 031 )istory locates the !oem in the autumn of 1617. historicism does the rest ma*ing that location not an accident of chronology but an actual siting of the te(t within that time and !lace insisting that it is embedded in its environment rather than merely floating along on to! of it encased in its /antian bubble" 081 The critical act is almost an +outing+ of the te(t moving it into the !ublic domain and simultaneously ma*ing !ublic %or ma*ing e(!licit' its secret ties to this wider conte(tual world" 8 9uch a thumbnail account oversim!lifies the interesting com!le(ities that have been discovered around the border between aesthetics and history over the !ast two decades or so" :ne of the most fruitful results of the historicist revolution has been the suggestion that many $omantic&!eriod writers and te(ts themselves an(iously straddle the o!!osed s!heres debating their own commitment to or criti,ue of the $omantic ideology as intensively as their modern critics" My aim here is to consider the case of )a;litt+s Liber Amoris and its readers as an instance of a literary artifact caught oddly in the !rocess of emerging into the !ublic s!here while a!!arently also trying to withdraw into the secrecy of aesthetic s!ace" # do not intend to su!!ly a full reading of the boo* -to encase it that is in an inter!retation that might fi( its notoriously unstable !lace" <hat seems to be at issue instead is the degree to which Liber Amoris+s own agitated recrossings of the border between history and te(tuality are re!roduced by its readers and what light this might shed on the idea that history is the antidote to $omantic ideologies of literature" A fairly casual mid&century descri!tion of the boo* ca!tures the alternatives under debate2 +something between a wor* of art and

a case history+" 0=1 >etween aesthetics and the actual between art and history2 this is the border to which historicism has critically drawn attention" The ambiguous state of )a;litt+s self&e(!osing narrative might thus reflect valuably on the choices it forces readers to ma*e" = Liber Amoris has often !rovo*ed commentators into language that !roblematically !olarises literature and history" The sheer oddness of the boo*-or more accurately of the fact of its !ublication-seems most easily accounted for in such terms" 9o Jonathan <ordsworth writes in his introduction to the <oodstoc* facsimile edition that here +life and art are in abnormally close relation+ while Jonathan Gross recognises the tem!tation to read this narrative as +an event in 0)a;litt+s1 life which seems to have no !lace in his literary career+" 0?1 This !attern of antithetical reference to +life and art+ goes bac* to the boo*+s earliest reviewers" The >lac*wood+s review for e(am!le clearly sees what is at sta*e when it asserts +this wor* is not a novel but a history+" 0@1 Literariness offers Liber Amoris a safe haven a way of reading which would allow it to be aestheticised and so made sense of. but the boo* itself seems intent on e(!elling itself from this haven into the domain of history where it s!ea*s all too e(!licitly %and ine(!licably' of the real circumstances under which it was written" Thus )enry Arabb $obinson recognised the boo*+s literary *inshi! with the two most obvious !arallels Goethe+s <erther and $ousseau+s Julie only to note that )a;litt+s narrative of overwrought erotic !assion seems not literary but embarrassingly !ersonal2 +such a story as this is nauseous and revolting+" 0B1 There have always been commentators who never hesitated to o!t for the terminology of ethics over aesthetics" Twentieth&century Cudgments include among other terms +disgusting+ +silly+ a +tragic !iece of futility+. some nineteenth&century ones are !redictably more virulent2 +this wretched com!ound of folly and nauseous sensuality+ +mi(ed filth and utter des!icableness+ +beastly trash+" 061 ? A recent article on Liber Amoris by /urt M" /oenigsberger summarises and considers the o!tions which a!!ear to have been available to critics of )a;litt+s boo*" )e observes that attem!ts to read the subCect of the wor*-the figure of +)"+ and his story-tend +to reinforce the distinction between biogra!hy and fiction+" 071 As in the case of the >lac*wood+s reviewer these alternatives are systematically e(clusive" #f +)"+ is read as +an autonomous aesthetic obCect+ %/oenigsberger 36@' then the boo* becomes an artifact of confessional literature situated at a distance from the messy details of )a;litt+s embarrassing infatuation with 9arah <al*er" :therwise he is identified with the historical circumstances of )a;litt+s abortive affair and no literary act intervenes between the letters and noteboo*s )a;litt wrote in s!ring 1633 under the influence of his erotic obsession and the !rinting of versions of those documents as Liber Amoris a year later" The choice seems to be2 art or lifeD Acutely /oenigsberger notices how the !articular strangeness of this te(t is recorded +within an inter!retative economy characteri;ed by a logic of the e(cluded middle+ %ibid"' Aritics see* the +something between+ literature and history and yet find themselves forced into !olarised alternatives which debar them from that hinterland" @ This !roblem indicates that there might be something to be learned from considering Liber Amoris+s readability and how it has been read" Ahoices about the wor* tend to be e(!licit choices about critical method" >ecause of its unusual nature it always seems to raise metacritical concerns. its challenging generic status for e(am!le !rovo*es a rethin*ing of e(isting conce!ts of genre" 01E1 #ts autobiogra!hical&confessional form itself seems to !ull readers towards either a !athological inter!retation %Liber Amoris as a sym!tom of )a;litt+s character' or a refle(ive one %Liber Amoris as a dis,uisition on the romantic character'" The methodological sta*es raised by these alternatives become a!!arent Cust by thin*ing about why the boo* goes on being read at all" The slender volume !ublished by John )unt in early May 1638 was certainly as the Times+s reviewer remar*ed +a curiosity of literature+ but not a !rominent event in it" 0111 <hat !revented it from falling into the

obscurity reserved for curiosities was the same thing that still !reserves it in the canon2 its authorshi!" Then as now )a;litt+s !ublic !lace in the world of letters was such that any te(t of his gained a degree of significance no matter how bi;arre its content or how uneven its formal literary ,ualities" The individual !resence of the author is thus doubly woven into this te(t2 firstly because of its e(aggeratedly egotistical autobiogra!hical form and secondly because it is )a;litt who ma*es Liber Amoris continue to be interesting to readers" Together these factors im!ly a $omantic ideology of the te(t" The boo* seems ine(tricable from the identity of its author legible only in relation to an individuated and e(!ressive selfhood of the *ind constructed most monumentally in The 5relude" B At the same time though the association of Liber Amoris with )a;litt himself tends towards the conclusions reached by Arabb $obinson or the ranting columns of John >ull" Gross renews this biogra!hical stance by asserting +it is clear that Liber Amoris is a !athological wor* one that reveals a strain in )a;litt+s identity+ %Gross BE7'" <hether by straightforward moral Cudgment or so!histicated !sychose(ual analysis what ends u! being read here is )a;litt+s own identity over and above the te(t the latter being to some degree sym!tomatic of the former" Farious formalisms and historicisms have of course been ado!ted to resist the identity&based inter!retations the wor* seems to invite" Most notably Marilyn >utler has argued that +)"+ re!resents an ironic counter&criti,ue of the very constructions of autonomous and !assionate subCectivity it a!!ears to e(em!lify" 0131 # will consider her !osition in more detail shortly" 6 The difficulty in dealing with the boo* derives from its !osition at an unstable boundary between !ublic and !rivate s!heres" #t brings them into a conCunction so incongruous that it verges on the ine(!licable" <hy should this intensely !rivate narrative of desire Cealousy and des!air be committed to !rint es!ecially when it !ortrays the first !erson in an obviously unflattering lightD $ousseau at least cloa*s his confessions in an e(tended a!ologia though even that was not enough to !revent most English readers tarring the se(ually e(!licit e!isodes of his autobiogra!hy with the same brush later a!!lied to Liber Amoris" <ollstonecraft+s im!assioned Letters sha!e themselves for the !ublic !artly as travel documents and !artly in the !o!ular language of sentimental romance" Ge Huincey+s indulgences are introduced by the disingenuous claim that his narrative is for the benefit of the medical fraternity" <ordsworth meanwhile !reserved the decorous silence of manuscri!t" #t is very difficult to detect any such recognition of a !ublic audience containing or conte(tualising the !ublication of )a;litt+s narrative" 5rivacy and !ublicity clash strangely again in the matter of the boo*+s wea* !retence of anonymity" The brief +Advertisement+ introducing the !ublished te(t loo*s li*e an attem!t to rescue !ro!riety by ma*ing the contents fictional or novelistic or at least someone else+s story" )owever the disguise is so thin as to be as good as trans!arent and the te(t that follows is full of incriminating details. and anyway )a;litt had already s!read his story by word of mouth all over London" Liber Amoris insistently draws attention to the anomalies of its inter!lay between author te(t and conte(ts resisting readers+ attem!ts to understand it as either self&e(!ression or literary fiction" 7 Ior /oenigsberger the subCect of Liber Amoris is !recisely the self that moves across the border between the !rivate and !ublic domains. the self that see*s for self&!ossession but also circulates in !ublic as a +character+ or re!utation" #n his reading the boo*+s unwarranted e(!osure is not the embarrassingly fran* revelation of !rivate events in a !ublication but rather the e(!osure of the !ermeability of this border" The story of Liber Amoris he argues enacts the revelation that +the self is individually sovereign only by a fiction and reali;es its e(istence substantially in its social circulation+ %/oenigsberger 8E8'" Again the alternatives boil down to an o!!osition between a fictive !rivate state-the state of literature under a $omantic ideology according to !olemical

historicism-and an actual !ublic s!here" /oenigsberger attem!ts very subtly to allow these alternatives to overla! rather then merely being bewildered by the idea of +something between+" )e reads a collusion between the economy of !rivate self&definition and the suicidal e(!osure of the self to damaging !ublic circulation2 the former draws necessarily on the latter so that selfhood is only !ossessed through a wilfully destructive +negation of his self&discontinuity+ %/oenigsberger 8EB'" )ow might this !owerful conce!tion of the danger of the !ublic&!rivate border be a!!ro!riated to the !roblem of Liber Amoris+s mere legibilityD #f the transition from the aesthetic to the social s!heres both !romulgates and annihilates the subCect of the boo* how does this com!licate a methodological faith that the same movement-from art to life-reveals the truth about false subCectsD 1E These are significant ,uestions about )a;litt+s te(t because its generic oddness %which derives from the fact of its !ublicity its availability to readers' is re!roduced internally by its formal and thematic concern with readershi!" $ha!sodising in the field of the internal it nevertheless !laces this language of e(!ressive inwardness-+my heart has found a tongue+ 0181-in a series of dialogic encounters with readers" 5art one transcribes dialogues between +)"+ and his beloved +9"+ and then re!roduces his letters to her" 5art two consists of letters to and from +A" 5-+ as well as some further corres!ondence with +9"+ %or +9"L"+'" 5art three is a continuous first&!erson narrative but it too ta*es the form of te(tual address to a reader !resenting itself as a long letter to +J"9"/+" #f the heart finds a tongue in the te(t of )a;litt+s boo* then it also finds a series of ears %or reading eyes'" The rhetoric of the !rivate self is a!!arently characterised by its desire to transmit itself to others" 11 #n a basic sense this is the !roblem of unre,uited !assion2 an attem!t to re!roduce inward feelings in the reci!rocal feelings of the other" #t is however a desire that structures +)"+s relationshi! to all his readers not Cust +9"+. and it also sha!es the !ublication of Liber Amoris which ma*es )a;litt+s !assionate rhetoric available as a literary document" #n all these relationshi!s the effort of the writer would a!!ear to be straightforwardly romantic %or $omantic'" That is inward !assion tries to ma*e the e(ternal world conform with it" The lover romantically wants +9"+ to be as he imagines her %hence the subtitle +The 4ew 5ygmalion+'. the writer corres!ondingly wishes to invo*e the $omantic ideology whereby life is made subservient to art drawing the reader or listener into his e(travagantly rhetorical and im!assioned inter!retation of the abortive affair" The dialogic other is usually re!resented as a resistance to be overcome by the force of this erotic&literary desire" +9"+ is obdurately dull evasive or silent while echoes of the other readers+ sce!tically !ragmatic attitude resound in +)"+s addresses to them-+# grant all you say about my self&tormenting folly+ he writes to +A" 5-+ before adding his counterclaim2 +but has it been without causeD+ %83?'" Liber Amoris !ersistently refers to +9"+ in terms of !ictures visions images %even when s!ea*ing of her body -+her image never ,uitted my side+ 8?3' restlessly attem!ting to re!lace the !roblematic blan*ness of her actual e(istence with the lover+s fantasies" 9he herself accuses him of this2 +Jou sit and fancy things out of your own head and then lay them to my charge+ %8E='" +)"+ is ha!!y to agree" The value of the e(!erience he claims lies in the degree to which it e(ists !rimarily in his own head" )e defines the !erfection of love as when the +heart has as it were filled u! the moulds of the imagination+2 +5erfect love re!oses on the obCect of its choice li*e the halcyon on the wave and the air of heaven is around it+ %886'" )a;litt+s boo* a!!arently invites its readers to construe the relation between !assion and actuality in the same way. a radiant ethereal rhetoric !ouring itself onto and around the narrative events" The reader would seem to be !ositioned as an audience for +)"+s !erformance" <hen he is declaring himself to +9"+ or recounting his !assion to +A" 5-+ or +J" 9" /+ or addressing his te(t to the reading !ublic he is giving the audience access to his richly romantic& $omantic !rivacy" +091!ea*+ he urges himself +find bleeding words to e(!ress thy thoughts+ %836'. that im!ulse to e(!ression results in the te(t" 13

Jet the relationshi! with the reader is far from being one&way traffic" The rhetoric of !assion interiority and imagination not only communicates itself in the dialogic moment but actually constructs itself %or finds itself' there" 01=1 At moments when the boo* records fragments of what a!!ear to be +!urely+ !rivate te(t addressed to no one the language of the self brea*s down into virtual incoherence" After transcribing a letter to +9"+ towards the end of !art one the boo* inserts a strange !assage in which it intuits the absence of a reader and follows immediately with a gro!ing sense of self&loss2 0To this letter # have received no answer not a line" The rolling years of eternity will never fill u! that blan*" <here shall # beD <hat am #D :r where have # beenD1 01?1 813 Later in !art two the se,uence of letters is interru!ted by +A Thought+ which similarly bears witness to an unresolvable alienation of the first&!erson voice from itself2 +# am not mad but my heart is soK+ %836'" <ithout the e(!licit !resence of an audience the narrator+s voice seems to disa!!ear in its own rhetoric" The address to readers of various *inds is the condition for a language that *ee!s moving bac* and forward between its narration of +actual+ e(!erience-the events and settings of the story-and its interiorised rha!sodies" <ithout this oscillation language seems to be trying to conCure the !rivate self out of thin air s!ea*ing of nothing %and conse,uently im!lying that the s!ea*er too is not really there'" The !rivate s!here in Liber Amoris cannot really be understood as +)"+s given state communicated to readers through self&e(!ression" +)"+ unfolds his internal world in a series of reversions !rom!ted by his interlocutors" #n conversation with +9"+ it is her static and noncommittal answers that generate his effusive rhetoric of !assion" +#ndeed # am thy creature+ %37?' he tells her. the echo of Iran*enstein suggests how his account of himself de!ends on his audience being creator as well as reader" The e(!ression of his love regularly turns out to be !rom!ted by his encounter with her2 +Go not loo* so-do not tal* so-unless you would drive me mad" # could worshi! you at this moment+ %376'" <ithout the +moment+ of dialogue the te(t is unable to locate +)"+s heightened inwardness at all" 18 The letters to his two corres!ondents continue the !attern" 5unctuated by e(clamation !oints dashes oaths eCaculations interCections they continuously revert to the language of the self and its !assions as a *ind of reaction to the !rocess of narration" +>y )eavenL # doat on her+ %83E'. +:h noL believe it # love her as # do my own soul+ %83?'. +# must brea* off here. for the hysterica !assio comes u!on me+ %88='. these are the letters+ ty!ical grammar and tone" +)"+ can find the te(tual form of what is !resumed to be inside him the +bleeding words+ of the heart+s language than*s to the im!lied !resence of an addressee" Even in the third !art when the fiction of corres!ondence is ,uite flimsy and the te(t basically ta*es the form of continuous retros!ective narration the fact that this narration is delivered to a reader signals its author+s im!assioned state" :nly on the rare occasions when +J" 9" /"+ is directly addressed does the te(t become e(!ressive of the !resumed intensity of +)"+s inner state2 +5ity me my friend for the shame of this recitalL 5ity me for the !ain of having ever had to ma*e itL+ %8@E'" Li*ewise at the tragicomically seedy conclusion of the romance it is the im!lied reader who !rovides the occasion for +)"+s self&diagnosis2 +# am no more lifted now to )eaven and then !lunged in the abyssK+ %8B8'" Liber Amoris is always s!ea*ing its !assion to someone" The language of !rivate e(!erience that is *nows itself and forms itself through the act of !ublication" 1= /oenigsberger+s thematic argument about the e,uation of self&!ossession with self&annihilation can therefore be trans!osed into a fundamental idea about the boo*+s legibility" E(!osing-!ublishing-

the language of selfhood to readers is in this case at least the act through which the te(t simulates a %su!!osedly authentic' !rivate voice" This is !erha!s the root of the difficulty readers of Liber Amoris have in distinguishing +art+ and +life+ literature and history the !rivate and the !ublic and in determining the relation between them" <e e(!ect this to be a relation of !riority2 one conditions the other" A +$omantic+ reading of the !air might see the literary e(!ression of inwardness as the motivating force. historicist inter!retations usually insist that art is subCect %not !rior' to its circumstances and so might argue that the language of selfhood is a res!onse to certain conditions in the !ublic s!here" )owever )a;litt+s boo* ma*es all such decisions difficult" >ecause of the intricate way in which it is directed both inward %to self&e(!ression' and outward %to reader& figures' it invites readers to consider whether the te(t they are encountering is a !rivate or a !ublic one" As it oscillates bac* and forwards across this border it tem!ts critics to commit themselves to one direction or the other" 1? Ahoices between identity or interiority on the one hand and !ublic conte(ts on the other have become highly&charged inter!retative moments" McGann+s 1768 boo*s ma*e these alternatives central to their corrective !roCect see*ing to re!lace the figure of the author as the source of writing with a collaborative contentious material environment of te(tual !roduction" 01@1 This transition is !articularly fraught in the case of Liber Amoris as it is to some degree with all te(ts that can be described as autobiogra!hies" The arena of history aggressively dis!utes the ideology of the e(!ressive self" There is a mar*ed discontinuity between +)"+s !rivate narrative and its actual circumstances. the difference between subCective and obCective inter!retations of the narrative is in fact the main thematic concern" The dichotomy is ca!tured in the subtitle +The 4ew 5ygmalion+" #s 5ygmalion a fantasist withdrawing narcissistically into an infatuation with his own creationD :r is he a ty!e of the $omantic artist li*e Adam in /eats+s letter whose creative imagination turns into reality by the force of his desireD The former reading im!lies a historicist criti,ue of $omantic self& sufficiency while the latter tends towards the ancien rgime+s conclusions about materialist mirrors turning into #dealist lam!s" 1@ These ,uestions hinge on our understanding of the relationshi! between )a;litt and +)"+ author and narrative !rotagonist" The more distance o!ened between them the more +)"+ becomes Cust a letter2 a literary figure that is legible only as !art of the world of letters and !rint" Aorres!ondingly Liber Amoris is in these readings a highly literary te(t" All biogra!hical im!lications and Cudgments can be ignored" The rhetorical energy and interte(tual allusiveness of the boo* of +)"+ become signals of its difference from unmediated autobiogra!hical e(!erience !ointing instead to its relation to other boo*s" This relation can then be construed in larger literary&historical terms" A 17B? article by $obert $eady discovers careful formal structures in Liber Amoris and having thereby made it art rather than !athological sym!tom converts its theme into the foundation of a Great Tradition2 +#t is one of the first e(tended treatments in a line of modern writing on men who try to ma*e women fit their illusions"+ 01B1 %4ote how he s!ea*s of +writing on men+ rather than +by men+2 +)"+ is very clearly not being identified as the author"' A more !o!ular strategy recently is to inter!ret the boo*+s literary relations in terms of !arody satire or irony" 9o far from being the vehicle of authorial self& e(!ression +)"+ is in these readings a character whose story articulates the failings of $omantic ideologies of authorshi!" #n James Mulvihill+s 177E article +)"+ is an +ironic self&!ortrait+ using the story of )a;litt+s infatuation to !oint u! the moral and aesthetic deficiencies of the age" 0161 More s!ecifically Marilyn >utler has argued that )" is +)a;litt+s 5ortrait of the Artist+ %>utler 1@B' invo*ing contem!orary models of authorial self&validation in a satirical s!irit and so revealing the merely literary character of the im!assioned first&!erson narrator" Liber Amoris thus re!resents +the satirical counter!ortrait+ %>utler 1@6' to $ousseavian or Ge Huinceyan or <ordsworthian models of how self&e(!ression !resents itself in the literary !ublic s!here" 1B

>y transforming the autobiogra!hical narrative of )a;litt+s e(!eriences in 1633 into the boo* of +)"+ these inter!retations are in effect !utting a set of ,uotation mar*s around the documentation which tells us that )a;litt and +)"+ are the same !erson" This means that instead of sim!ly being )a;litt+s self&e(!ression in !ublished noteboo*s and letters Liber Amoris is in some sense about that self& e(!ression" 9uch a reading a!!eals to material te(tuality as the salvation from $omantic ideology" The !ublication of !ersonal documents detaches them from the subCectivity of their author creating a new te(tual subCect %+)"+' whose relation to the reading !ublic is mediated by literariness or irony or satire" 9o the ve(ed antagonism between !rivate self and the !ublic s!here is li*ewise enclosed in comforting ,uotation mar*s" #nstead of being evidence of <illiam )a;litt+s !athological urge to *iss and tell Liber Amoris is a commentary on the autobiogra!hical relation between author and te(t" 16 Liber Amoris though begs a ,uestion about the im!lied ,uotation mar*s that ma*e this reading !ossible" <ho !ut them thereD #s it s!ecialist academic readers who are after all e(!erts in !utting ,uote mar*s around thingsD #s it )a;litt himself as almost all critics im!ly when arguing that the boo* has always been misreadD %That is they thin* Arabb $obinson and other biogra!hical inter!reters have missed )a;litt+s ironising signals"' :r is it as >utler sensitively argues an ambiguity within early nineteenth&century literary !ractice itself which ma*es !ossible this sense that self&e(!ression isn+t +!ure+ but invites a satirical alternativeD Ior the !ur!oses of e(!loring historicist methodologies we can discount the first two o!tions fairly ra!idly" #f it is only the critics who reinvent Liber Amoris as a commentary on itself then we+re somewhere in the self&consciously !layful domain of deconstruction" #f on the other hand )a;litt himself is !resumed to have !ublished the boo* with an inherent ironic !ur!ose then we+re dealing with ,uestions of intentionality" 4ot only are these certainly unsolvable-the evidence is s*etchy and inconclusivebut they also bring us bac* to the author as the ultimate source of te(t. one *ind of authoritative !ersonal e(!ressiveness sim!ly re!laces another" This leaves the third o!tion the thoroughly historicist argument that what now loo*s li*e $omantically e(!ressive autobiogra!hy was in the 163Es ambiguous and contentious" Accurately understood the historical conte(t means that a !erformance li*e Liber Amoris would necessarily be contained within those invisible ,uotation mar*s" # ,uote from >utler+s argument2 K in what we now *now as the romantic !eriod writing directly about the self was still !roblematical" :n the one hand the reader seems to demand and the writer to strive for a new fullness of self&e(!ression 0K1 :n the other hand 0K1 any wor* that a!!ears to have self& e(!ression or self&validation as its goal is liable to set u! an ethical bac*lash a com!laint that the individual is not autonomous that society has claims and that artists are as much bound by moral law as anyone else" >utler 1?= The turn to history is here used to !oint out a tension within literary !ractice which $omantic ideologies have disguised" This tension can then be read into the !roblematic du!licity of )a;litt+s te(t" <here it seemed to be ine(!licable either as unmediated autobiogra!hy or as !ure fiction >utler+s e(em!lary historicist method invites us to read $omantic e(!ressiveness in tandem with a satirical bac*lash" The very intensity of Liber Amoris+s re!resentation of the self becomes the sign of its resistance to that $omantic aesthetic" 17 This subtle and !owerful argument ado!ts the ambiguity of )a;litt+s boo* almost as a !olemical wea!on" <here %as # have argued' Liber Amoris discovers the language of interiority only in dialogue with its !ublic >utler finds that this discovery is !redetermined by an ironising intent that

very closely mirrors her own" 9he and )a;litt are both e(!osing the fiction of !rivacy by !lacing it in its contem!orary literary conte(t" >y crossing over from the language of selfhood to the world of readers the te(t enables us to abandon $omantic !resum!tions about the !riority of an individual e(!ressive voice" Ma*ing )a;litt into a satirist sets u! an antagonistic relationshi! between literariness and history. an antagonism which can then be ta*en u! by modern inter!reters to su!!ort their methodological claims" 3E 5erha!s though the legibility of Liber Amoris in its historical conte(t reveals a less o!!ositional relation between the !ublic and the !rivate" Most contem!orary readers a!!ear to have been disgusted %as Arabb $obinson was' by )a;litt+s transgression of the conventional boundaries between the two2 the fran* re!resentation of erotic obsession obviously challenged tacit notions of literary decorum by circulating !ersonal e(!erience among the reading !ublic" 4evertheless this !articular form of transgression had by 1638 attained some *ind of generic status. that is there was a !lace %albeit still a contentious one' for the language of e(treme !rivacy within the !ublic s!here" An article +:n Auto&>iogra!hy+ in the Edinburgh Maga;ine for June 1633 less than a year before !ublication of Liber Amoris recognises a category of transgressive confessional literature. the re!resentative e(hibits are %as for most other commentators in the 163Es and 8Es' $ousseau and >yron whose wor*s are defined as +5oetical Aonfessions+" 0171 #f the indecorousness of self& e(!ression %es!ecially erotic self&e(!ression' in this *ind of writing a!!arently troubles the border between !rivate and !ublic discourse this certainly does not ma*e such boo*s unreadable at face value" :n the contrary the author of this article maintains that the language of selfhood enters into a *ind of contract with the !ublic than*s to the mere fact of !ublication" +A !erson writing memoirs of himself does nothing else K than ma*e the !ublic his confessor+ sMhe writes" 03E1 The choice of !unishment or absolution rests with the reader. the confessing author is not !er se to blame" This reviewer seems to identify a willing and rather unsur!rising collusion between authorial self& e(!ression %however shoc*ing' and the reading !ublic" The border between !ublic and !rivate s!heres between life and literature is seen to be !ermeable" Moreover while its !ermeability certainly raises doubts about whether it ought to be more effectively !oliced there is nevertheless no indication that its two sides are mutually o!!osed" <hat does emerge from reviews of Liber Amoris in the wee*lies and monthlies is a sense of the ambiguities and com!le(ities within +$omantic+ constructions of e(!ressive subCectivity" 31 )ostile reviewers were eager to e(!loit the boo*+s a!!arent authenticity" <riting in >lac*wood+s Loc*hart e(!ressed his delight in being !resented with +a veritable transcri!t of the feelings and doings of an individual living L#>E$AL"+ 0311 This is a !oliticised !athology in which moral degradation blends seamlessly with its !ublic e,uivalent" The com!ulsive sensualist and egotist demonstrates his civil and religious inca!acity as well2 e(actly the same !attern governed reactionary res!onses to the Aonfessions of $ousseau who had been elevated into the secular !antheon of the revolutionary 4ational Assembly" The interiority of the author is thus a !olitically contestable s!ace because Liber Amoris bears witness to the !ossible ways in which subCectivity im!inges on the !ublic s!here" The reviewer in the 4ew Euro!ean Maga;ine raises the !ossibility of reading the boo* as if it were merely novelistic its hero a +ho!eless victim of sensibility and fatal love+. but he goes on this is +all Iudge" The age of sentiment has long since !ast way 0sic1"+ 0331 Jet the social irres!onsibility of the boo* is directly associated with )a;litt himself" Autobiogra!hical records of the inner life are not attac*ed !er se2 what fuels the reviewer+s ire is the fact that this is +the actual history of a man who sets himself u! as a critic a moralist a Cudge of human natureK+ 0381 33 The rare sym!athetic comments a!!earing in 1638 seem to antici!ate modern critical !ractice by

maintaining some form of distinction between )a;litt and +)"+ #n doing so however they are never suggesting that the te(tual identity be read in relation to literary models let alone as a satirical reflection on fashionable re!resentations of authorshi!" They sim!ly substitute +)"+s anonymous but nevertheless authentic subCectivity for the !olitically loaded identity of an outs!o*en reformist writer. +)"+ is a disguise not an alternative A number of recent critics have cited the reviewer in the E(aminer as evidence that a non&biogra!hical !hiloso!hical reading of Liber Amoris was available in the 163Es" A!art from the fact that it was almost certainly written by a friend of )a;litt and therefore surely re!resents a deliberate attem!t to head off what it correctly antici!ates will be the general reaction this review is actually dee!ly committed to what would now be called a +$omantic+ inter!retation of the te(t" 03=1 Li*e the >lac*wood+s !iece it understands the narrative to be truthful. and again li*e the hostile reviews it uses the evidence of the boo* to characterise the mind of the author" The difference is that it goes along with the !ublished Advertisement+s !retence of anonymity" #nstead of a !athology of liberalism written by a Tory we get a !athology of imaginative subCectivity written by a liberal" Liber Amoris he says e(em!lifies +how common& !lace matter of fact may be s!irituali;ed by genius+ 03?1 an eminently <ordsworthian or Aoleridgean formulation that nevertheless !roceeds from the same assum!tions about author and te(t as are held by the reviewers in >lac*wood+s or John >ull or numerous other contem!orary !ublications" The only real evidence that the te(t could be read without !rovo*ing !ersonal Cudgments on its author comes from a short notice in the Edinburgh Literary Ga;ette of July 3nd 1638" $es!onding to the vitu!erative reviews of )a;litt+s wor* this writer remar*s +it was argued because the >oo* of Love was in !oint of fact the narrative of a !art of the author+s life that ergo it merited contem!t ridicule and abuse"+ 03@1 9Mhe im!lies that literary Cudgments ought to be made without reference to the author+s identity" )owever the target of this obCection is the !artisan factionalism of !eriodical reviewing" <hen the reviewer writes that +we do not mean to stand forth as cham!ions of Mr )a;litt or of his boo*+ it is clear that the autobiogra!hical e,uivalence between the two is still in !lace" 03B1 The narrative is still seen as essentially !rivate and e(!ressive. what is being debated is the nature of the !ublic res!onse to it" The reviewer defends autobiogra!hical !ublication in general against the !articular and !ersonal attac*s that had been aimed at )a;litt" This is not a flight from historicity but an effort to establish !ro!er ways of accommodating self&e(!ression to the e(!ectations of the literary !ublic at large" 38 Liber Amoris and its readers are e,ually involved in testing this uneasy Cu(ta!osition" Farious absolutist reactions are !ossible from Arabb $obinson+s !etit&bourgeois revulsion which im!lies that autobiogra!hy ought to be edited for consum!tion by the !ublic to Mulvihill+s academic rescue o!eration which com!rehensively recasts the te(t of the self as a te(t of the times" <hat is at sta*e in such discriminations is the !ossibility and the !ro!riety of reading selfhood at all" As the writer in the Edinburgh Literary Ga;ette remar*s once a te(t is identified as s!ea*ing in the voice of its author +ergo+ it receives certain *inds of readings" Theories of $omantic ideology !rovide one e(am!le of this causality" They outline a star* choice couched as a >loomian agon between the reactionary blindness of a !receding generation of critics and res!onsible insight2 either one turns to history or one remains im!risoned within the false consciousness of the te(t+s own fictions of subCectivity" 3= #s this choice so different from the o!tions faced by $eady and other critics devoted to the idea of the literary te(t as an inde!endent self&sufficient aesthetic artifactD #t is evident that for $eady the alternatives are sim!le2 either Liber Amoris is what John >ull says it is %although he would see no need for the !rurient reaction' or it is a construct li*e a $omantic :de !resenting significant !atterns and sha!es that reveal the !ossibilities of literary inter!retation" )e chooses between aesthetics and reality2 only the former !rovides for a critically intelligible legible te(t" A more recent generation of Anglo&American critics commits itself to the !osition that $eady+s +reality+-

autobiogra!hical reality te(tual reference to the author+s self&e(!ression-is not in fact an alternative to aesthetics2 the two are symmetrical !illars in the ideological facade" 9ee*ing to esca!e this structure+s illusion of transhistorical !ermanence they set u! an o!!osition between $omanticism %as both a literary !ractice and a conce!t of the te(t' and some other s!ace where that unified blindingly and falsely authoritative construction might be by!assed2 somewhere +at the limits of $omanticism+-the female body !erha!s or the realm of history" 0361 #n each case the road wisely not ta*en is figured as a hermeneutic tra! a method which disables !ro!er reading" $eady needs formalism as an esca!e&route from !athological !ersonal inter!retations. the critics of $omantic ideology need their chosen method to avoid being contained by the closed circle of $omanticism+s self&re!resentations" 3? >ecause of its strangely accidental endurance on the fringes of the canon Liber Amoris will go on testing the difficult border between legible literature and ine(!licably immediate autobiogra!hy" The critical moment of historicism res!onds to this difficulty by re!resenting autobiogra!hy of this sort as an ideological im!osition2 ta*e away the !rivate subCect and you ta*e bac* the te(t" Jet the turn to history in this case suggests that $omantic first&!erson narratives are not necessarily blind to their fraught intersections with their conte(ts their circumstances with history" $eading Liber Amoris we encounter an interiority translating itself into the !ublic s!here. so its contem!oraries a!!ear to have thought at least and so the biogra!hers and !athologists still assume" To redefine that interiority as an effect of ideology is to im!ly a relatively clear&cut antithesis between subCectivity and history author and conte(t )a;litt and +)"+ Jet here and elsewhere interiority occu!ies a !lace in both !rivate and !ublic s!heres. histories of the self intersect with material histories and the voice of !assion establishes itself rhetorically %even grammatically' through its dialogic a!!roach to its audience" The fact that Liber Amoris and its readers find this relation so !ainfully difficult ought to suggest that we shouldn+t underestimate its !ossible com!le(ity either today or in 1638" #nsofar as criti,ues of the $omantic ideology describe !rivate s!ace as the realm of ideology and !ublic s!ace as the realm of history they draw a borderline that $omantic te(ts often refuse to ac*nowledge" 4otes 011 Jerome J" McGann The $omantic #deology %Ahicago2 University of Ahicago 5ress 1768' !" 71" 031 4icholas $oe +/eats+s Aommonwealth+ in /eats and )istory ed" 4icholas $oe %Aambridge2 Aambridge University 5ress 177?' !!" 17=&311" 081 A systematically thorough critical and methodological study of such a method in the conte(t of the $omantic !eriod has a!!eared fairly recently2 James Ahandler England in 1617 %Ahicago2 University of Ahicago 5ress 1776'" 0=1 Ayril Aonnolly The Iine Art of $eading %London2 Aonstable 17?B' !" 3=B" 0?1 <illiam )a;litt Liber Amoris %:(ford2 <oodstoc* >oo*s 1773' n" !". Jonathan Gross +)a;litt+s <orshi!ing 5ractice in Liber Amoris+ 9tudies in English Literature 1?EE&17EE 8? %177?'2 BEB. hereafter abbreviated as Gross" 0@1

>lac*wood+s Edinburgh Maga;ine 18 %1638'2 @=1" 0B1 )enry Arabb $obinson )enry Arabb $obinson on >oo*s and their <riters ed" Edith J" Morley 8 vols" %London2 J"M" Gent and 9ons 1786' vol" 1 !" 37@" 061 9ee Gross BEB". Literary Ahronicle %36 June 1638'2 =E7. Literary Ga;ette %81 May 1638'2 887&8=E. John >ull 7 %June 1638'2 16E" 071 /urt M" /oenigsberger +Libert Libel and Liber Amoris2 )a;litt on 9overeignty and Geath+ 9tudies in $omanticism 86 %1777'2 36@. hereafter abbreviated as /oenigsberger" 01E1 9ee for e(am!le /oenigsberger 368. Gary /elly +The Limits of Genre and the #nstitution of Literature2 $omanticism >etween Iact and Iiction+ in $omantic $evolutions2 Ariticism and Theory eds" /enneth $" Johnston et al" %>loomington2 #ndiana University 5ress 177E' !!" 1?6&B?" 0111 The Times %8E May 1638'2 8" 0131 Marilyn >utler +9atire and the #mages of 9elf in the $omantic 5eriod2 The Long Tradition of )a;litt+s Liber Amoris+ in 9!irits of Iire2 English $omantic <riters and Aontem!orary )istorical Methods eds" G"A" $osso and Ganiel 5" <at*ins %London2 Associate University 5resses 177E' !!" 1?B&B=. hereafter abbreviated as >utler" 0181 <illiam )a;litt 9elected <ritings ed" $onald >lythe %London2 5enguin 17BE' !" 817. hereafter cited in the te(t by !age number only" 01=1 My argument here echoes a more general claim about $omantic voices made in Michael Macovs*i Gialogue and Literature %:(ford2 :(ford University 5ress 177='. see es!ecially cha!ter 1" 01?1 /oenigsberger ta*es this ,uestion +<hat am #D+ to be the central !roblem of both the authorial subCectivity and the generic eccentricity of Liber Amoris. see /oenigsberger 366" 01@1 #n addition to The $omantic #deology see also Jerome J" McGann A Ariti,ue of Modern Te(tual Ariticism %Ahicago2 University of Ahicago 5ress 1768'" 01B1 $obert $eady +The Logic of 5assion2 )a;litt+s Liber Amoris+ 9tudies in $omanticism 1= %17B?'2 =@" 0161 James Mulvihill +The Anatomy of #dolatry2 )a;litt+s Liber Amoris+ Aharles Lamb >ulletin BE %177E'2 3E3" 0171

Edinburgh Maga;ine 1E %1633'2 B=8" 03E1 Edinburgh Maga;ine 1E %1633'2 B=8&=" 0311 >lac*wood+s @=1" 0331 4ew Euro!ean Maga;ine 3 %1638'2 ?17" 0381 4ew Euro!ean Maga;ine ?31" 03=1 Iollowing 5"5" )owe $eiman suggests that the author was Albany Ionblan,ue and notes that if this attribution is correct the review is still more disingenuous than )a;litt+s lin*s with the E(aminer would lead us to believe anyway" 9ee Gonald )" $eiman ed" The $omantics $eviewed 8 !arts %4ew Jor*2 Garland 5ublishing 17B3' !art A vol" # !" =?3" 03?1 E(aminer %11 May 1638'2 81=" 03@1 Edinburgh Literary Ga;ette %3 July 1638'2 7B" 03B1 Edinburgh Literary Ga;ette %3 July 1638'2 7B" 0361 # allude to the title of a collection of essays that !resent various *inds of resistance to what they see as a unified $omantic ideology" The collection includes a feminist reading of 9arah )a;litt+s Cournal against Liber Amoris the latter said to characteri;e the $omantic tradition+s +assum!tion of unified identity as the source and directive of meaningful e(!erience+ %9onia )of*osh +9e(ual 5olitics and Literary )istory+ in At the Limits of $omanticism eds" Mary A" Iavret and 4icola J" <atson 0>loomington2 #ndiana University 5ress 177=1 !" 18@'"