Canuel Mark. Religion, Toleration, and British Writing, 1790-1830

Cambridge University Press, 2004. — 329 p.In Religion,Toleration, and British Writing, 1790–1830 Mark Canuel examines the way that Romantic poets, novelists, and political writers criticized the traditional grounding of British political unity in religious conformity. Canuel shows how a wide range of writers including Jeremy Bentham, Ann Radcliffe, Maria Edgeworth, and Lord Byron not only undermined the validity of religion in the British state, but also imagined a new, tolerant, and more organized mode of social inclusion.To argue against the authority of religion, Canuel claims, was to argue for a thoroughly revised form of tolerant yet highly organized government, a mode of political authority that provided unprecedented levels of inclusion and protection. Canuel argues that these writers saw their works as political and literary commentaries on the extent and limits of religious toleration. His study throws new light on political history as well as the literature of the Romantic period.
Mark Canuel is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has published numerous articles and reviews on Romantic writing in journals, including ELH, Nineteenth-Century Literature, and Studies in Romanticism.