William Godwin, Fleetwood; or The New Man of Feeling

Graham Allen (University College Cork)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.06: English Writing and Culture of the Romantic Period, 1789-1837.
Vol. editors: Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Daniel Robinson (Widener University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1805

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Readers of William Godwin's third novel tend nowadays to view it, like the earlier St Leon (1799), as an attempt to respond to the influence of Mary Wollstonecraft. Whether this view of these novels is accurate or not, it can be stated that the sub-title of the novel indicates an involvement with and examination of the notion of sensibility so important in a number of Wollstonecraft's work. As Pamela Clemit notes, in her introduction to the Pickering Collected Novels and Memoirs of William Godwin: “Although the novel's sub-title alludes to Henry Mackenzie's celebrated sentimental novel, The Man of Feeling (1771), the plot of marital jealousy in the third volume derives from Mackenzie's Julia de Roubigné (…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2552 words

Citation: Allen, Graham. "Fleetwood; or The New Man of Feeling". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 September 2004 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5116, accessed 04 December 2024.]

Save this article