This book investigates how French Romanticism was shaped by and contributed to colonial discourses of race. It studies the ways in which metropolitan Romantic novels-that is, novels by French authors such as Victor Hugo, George Sand, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Francois Rene de Chateaubriand, Claire de Duras, and Prosper Merimee-comprehend and construct colonized peoples, fashion French identity in the context of colonialism, and record the encounter between Europeans and non-Europeans. While the primary texts that come under investigation in the book are novels, close attention is paid to...

Indiana, George Sand's first solo novel, opens with the eponymous heroine brooding and bored in her husband's French countryside estate, far from her native Ile Bourbon (now Reunion). Written in 1832, the novel appeared during a period of French history marked by revolution and regime change, civil unrest and labor concerns, and slave revolts and the abolitionist movement, when women faced rigid social constraints and had limited rights within the institution of marriage. With this politically charged history serving as a backdrop for the novel, Sand brings together Romanticism,...

Indiana, George Sand's first solo novel, opens with the eponymous heroine brooding and bored in her husband's French countryside estate, far from her native Ile Bourbon (now Reunion). Written in 1832, the novel appeared during a period of French history marked by revolution and regime change, civil unrest and labor concerns, and slave revolts and the abolitionist movement, when women faced rigid social constraints and had limited rights within the institution of marriage. With this politically charged history serving as a backdrop for the novel, Sand brings together Romanticism,...