Representation of Warren Hastings in Romantic Literature

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K00439
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 02030:English literature and literature in the English language-related
• Research Institution: Tohoku University
• Principal Investigator: Suzuki Mitsuko 東北大学, 国際文化研究科, 名誉教授 (60073318)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: ウォレン・ヘースティングズ / 東インド会社 / ネイボブ / エドマンド・バーク / 植民地支配 / ロマン主義時代の英国小説 / ロバート・ベイジ / エリザベス・ハミルトン

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Warren Hastings (1732-1818) is the first Governor-General of India (1774 -1784), and is later impeached for corruption, but acquitted after a seven-year trial. The purpose of the present research project is to illustrate how he is represented in the Romantic Literature, such as Phebe Gibbes’s Hartley House, Calcutta (1789), Richard Sheridan’s Pizzaro (1799) and others. First, I located the novels in which Hastings was mentioned, depicted, and referred to, within the context of politics, culture, and religion at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. Second, I examined the way Hastings was represented in the Romantic Literature, in terms of his impeachment trial (1788-95), the East India Company he served for a long term, and Nabob who Hastings himself was typical of. Third, I investigated writers' political, racial, and religious consciousness latent in their works, for which their representation of Hastings provided clues.

Free Research Field

英米文学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究の学術的そして社会的意義は、Hastingsが言及されているロマン主義時代の作品を取り上げ、弾劾裁判の演説集、Frances Burneyの弾劾裁判傍聴記、政治論評、インド旅行記、インドの歴史書などの当時の様々な言説やJames Gillrayなどの諷刺画などに目配りしつつ、Hastingsにまつわる表象を分析したことである。新しい切り口で領域横断的に、文学作品に見られるHastings表象を考察する本研究は意義ある試みであると思われる。さらに言えば、本研究はロマン主義時代の文学研究に貢献するものであり、本研究によりこの時代の小説や戯曲の作品理解がより深化し、明確になるものと思われる。