Imagining the King's Death

Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide, 1793-1796
Erscheinungsjahr 2000
ISBN: 978-0-19-811292-1
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 756 Seiten, Format (B × H): 165 mm x 244 mm, Gewicht: 1417 g

It is high treason in British law to 'imagine' the king's death. But after the execution of Louis XVI in 1793, everyone in Britain must have found themselves imagining that the same fate might befall George III. How easy was it to distinguish between fantasising about the death of George and 'imagining' it, in the legal sense of 'intending' or 'designing'? John Barrell examines this question in the context of the political trials of the mid-1790s and the
controversies they generated. He shows how the law of treason was adapted in the years following Louis's death to punish what was acknowledged to be a 'modern' form of treason unheard of when the law had been framed. The result, he argues, was the invention of a new, an imaginary, a 'figurative' treason, by
which the question of who was imagining the king's death, the supposed traitors or those who charged them with treason, became inescapable.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Barrell, John

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder England, UK, Irland: Regional & Stadtgeschichte

Über Autor(innen)

John Barrell is Professor of English and Co-Director, Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies, University of York