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      • HARVEST
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      “I think myself as good as anybody” : nationalism, manliness, space and identity in Boswell’s London Journal

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      KruegerRevisedThesis.pdf (1.396Mb)
      Date
      2010-09
      Author
      Krueger, Kurt
      Type
      Thesis
      Degree Level
      Masters
      Metadata
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      Abstract
      James Boswell (1740-1795), biographer of Samuel Johnson and lifelong diarist, provided one of the most detailed descriptions of eighteenth-century London life in his London Journal: 1762-1763. In it, Boswell chronicled his self-conscious attempts to refashion himself from the uncultivated Scottish youth that he worried he was into the refined London gentleman he desperately wanted to become. Moving to London at a time when Post-Union Britain was supposedly ushering in a new era of ‘Britishness’, Boswell’s musings offer a different perspective, one in which nationalism – specifically, English and Scottish nationalism – played an important role in Boswell’s quest to construct his idealized genteel identity. Examinations of Boswell’s Journal reveal important insight into his views on national identity, masculinity, and the city of London itself, as well as how all of these aspects relate to each other in shaping Boswell’s quest to shape his character.
      Degree
      Master of Arts (M.A.)
      Department
      History
      Program
      History
      Supervisor
      DesBrisay, Gordon
      Committee
      McCannon, John; Smith, Lisa; Stephanson, Ray
      Copyright Date
      September 2010
      URI
      http://hdl.handle.net/10388/etd-11232010-202008
      Subject
      Identity
      Masculinity
      Space
      James Boswell (1740-1795)
      Nationalism
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      • Graduate Theses and Dissertations
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