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Article: William Godwin's Foreign Language: Stories and Families in Caleb Williams and Political Justice.
- Article from:
- Studies in Romanticism
- Article date:
- December 22, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Boston University. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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IT IS NOW WIDELY ACCEPTED THAT BOTH GODWIN'S TREATISE, AN ENQUIRY Concerning Political Justice (1793) and his major work of narrative fiction, Things As They Are; Or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794) are "designed to achieve change and also designed to refute the case for the status quo familiarised, above all, by Burke."(1) Nevertheless, the two books must be designed to fulfill this objective in different ways, if only because the design--the form--of a novel and a treatise are different.
It has been convincingly argued--notably by Gary Kelly, Pamela Clemit and Jon Klancher--that Godwin was alert to the complexity of the relationship between politics and ...