Romanticism and Slave Narratives: Transatlantic Testimonies. By Helen Thomas. Cambridge Studies in Romanticism, 38. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xi + 332; 5 illustrations. $59.95.

Since the Romantic period in English literature stretches from the peak of British colonial slavery nearly to emancipation, it seems appropriate to probe the connections between the two. Some recent scholarship, including the essays in collections edited by Sonya Hofkosh and Alan Richardson and by Tim Fulford and Peter Kitson, has begun to do so; much more is needed. Helen Thomas sets out to disclose a dialogue "between the discourse of Romanticism as it emerged out of eighteenth-century dissent and enthusiasm, and the narratives of displaced subjects, the slaves from the African diaspora" (p. 5). By setting slave narratives in dialogue with canonical Romantic texts, she proposes to recontextualize the latter amid the "cultural exchanges, geographical migrations and displaced identities" of this early stage of globalization (p. 5). The questions about self and identity central to the study of Romanticism are thus seen to encompass the radical instability and constant renegotiation characteristic of identities in the diaspora.

Elizabeth A. Bohls
University of Oregon