The Arctic in the Quarterly Review

Abstract

Pursuing the quintessentially Romantic quest for transcendence, I find it in an unlikely location – the Quarterly Review. My essay analyzes a series of eighteen articles on Arctic exploration published in the Quarterly between 1816 and 1840 by John Barrow, the bureaucrat behind the Romantic‐era push to discover the Northwest Passage. I approach these articles in the context of recent interpretations of early nineteenth‐century periodical writing that see it as collaborating with, rather than resisting, the emergence of Romanticism. Masking his political influence with a display of cultural power, Barrow used the anonymity of the Quarterly to advance his imperialistic, nationalistic, and private agendas, stereotyping native North Americans and conducting a feud against the explorer John Ross. Yet his Arctic articles reveal as well as occlude Barrow’s behind‐the‐scenes role as the Second Secretary for the British Admiralty, parading his access to inside information and even occasionally mentioning his own name. These articles thus provide an excellent opportunity to disentangle an individual voice from a corporate one and to identify an unexpectedly creative element in periodical prose. Drawing on the literary genres of epic, comedy, and romance, Barrow’s persecution of Ross tells a bleak rather than uplifting story of delusion, obsession, and eventually revenge. Nevertheless, the narrative that unfolds, like certain canonical Romantic texts, offers glimpses of the magic and mysticism of ice.