"Even in the Best Minds": Romanticism and the Evolution of Anti-Blackness

Abstract:This article explores how burgeoning progressive thinking about racial equality at the turn of the nineteenth century transformed into renewed racism and anti-blackness as the British abolition movement won success. It argues that the evolution of black characters over the nineteenth century, the etymology of arguably the most infamous of racial epithets, and the emergence of the term "white supremacy" during the Romantic period offers a window into how literature and language worked with and contributed to anti-blackness.