Author: Marianna D’Ezio
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443814695
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 180
Book Description
Culture and literature, indeed intellectual life as a whole, in eighteenth-century Britain were characterized by complex internal tensions as well as influenced by the unprecedented atmosphere of major political, cultural and social change which led to the revolutions at end of the century. Furthermore, the diffusion of periodicals and newspapers, which formed the basis of public conversation in urban coffee-houses, functioned as a vehicle for the dispersion of works which publicly mirrored a private society in the process of transformation. The focus on this change and the circulation of new ideas on taste and polite society as well as on culture and literature can be found in the continual intertwining between the public and the private spheres of society. The aim of the first part of this collection of original, unpublished essays by young international scholars is to investigate the dynamics of these “overlapping” spheres through new readings of eighteenth-century literary works which not only analysed the mechanisms of the private and public spheres, but also highlighted some remarkable cultural features, such as clothing and fashion, gossip and gender issues. As suggested by the title, the second part of the collection will expand on the principal idea of “intersections” in eighteenth-century English literature: from the intersections linking the private and public spheres of British society, to those between eighteenth-century works within the British literary canon, taking into account the influence of European thought. The purpose of the second group of essays is thus that of offering fresh perspectives and a re-evaluation of literary and cultural reciprocal exchanges, in order to better locate or re-locate canonical works and authors within the eighteenth-century literary tradition.
Literary and Cultural Intersections during the Long Eighteenth Century
Author: Marianna D’Ezio
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443814695
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 180
Book Description
Culture and literature, indeed intellectual life as a whole, in eighteenth-century Britain were characterized by complex internal tensions as well as influenced by the unprecedented atmosphere of major political, cultural and social change which led to the revolutions at end of the century. Furthermore, the diffusion of periodicals and newspapers, which formed the basis of public conversation in urban coffee-houses, functioned as a vehicle for the dispersion of works which publicly mirrored a private society in the process of transformation. The focus on this change and the circulation of new ideas on taste and polite society as well as on culture and literature can be found in the continual intertwining between the public and the private spheres of society. The aim of the first part of this collection of original, unpublished essays by young international scholars is to investigate the dynamics of these “overlapping” spheres through new readings of eighteenth-century literary works which not only analysed the mechanisms of the private and public spheres, but also highlighted some remarkable cultural features, such as clothing and fashion, gossip and gender issues. As suggested by the title, the second part of the collection will expand on the principal idea of “intersections” in eighteenth-century English literature: from the intersections linking the private and public spheres of British society, to those between eighteenth-century works within the British literary canon, taking into account the influence of European thought. The purpose of the second group of essays is thus that of offering fresh perspectives and a re-evaluation of literary and cultural reciprocal exchanges, in order to better locate or re-locate canonical works and authors within the eighteenth-century literary tradition.
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443814695
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 180
Book Description
Culture and literature, indeed intellectual life as a whole, in eighteenth-century Britain were characterized by complex internal tensions as well as influenced by the unprecedented atmosphere of major political, cultural and social change which led to the revolutions at end of the century. Furthermore, the diffusion of periodicals and newspapers, which formed the basis of public conversation in urban coffee-houses, functioned as a vehicle for the dispersion of works which publicly mirrored a private society in the process of transformation. The focus on this change and the circulation of new ideas on taste and polite society as well as on culture and literature can be found in the continual intertwining between the public and the private spheres of society. The aim of the first part of this collection of original, unpublished essays by young international scholars is to investigate the dynamics of these “overlapping” spheres through new readings of eighteenth-century literary works which not only analysed the mechanisms of the private and public spheres, but also highlighted some remarkable cultural features, such as clothing and fashion, gossip and gender issues. As suggested by the title, the second part of the collection will expand on the principal idea of “intersections” in eighteenth-century English literature: from the intersections linking the private and public spheres of British society, to those between eighteenth-century works within the British literary canon, taking into account the influence of European thought. The purpose of the second group of essays is thus that of offering fresh perspectives and a re-evaluation of literary and cultural reciprocal exchanges, in order to better locate or re-locate canonical works and authors within the eighteenth-century literary tradition.
Social Networks in the Long Eighteenth Century
Author: Ileana Baird
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443871354
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 350
Book Description
In an attempt to better account for the impressive diversity of positions and relations that characterizes the eighteenth-century world, this collection proposes a new methodological frame, one that is less hierarchical in approach and more focused, instead, on the nature of these interactions, on their Addisonian “usefulness,” declared goals, and (un)intended results. By shifting focus from a cultural-historicist approach to sociability to the rhizomatic nature of eighteenth-century associations, this collection approaches them through new methodological lenses that include social network analysis, assemblage and graph theory, social media and digital humanities scholarship. Imagining the eighteenth-century world as a networked community rather than a competing one reflects a recent interest in novel forms of social interaction facilitated by new social media—from Internet forums to various types of social networking sites—and also signals the increasing involvement of academic communities in digital humanities projects that use new technologies to map out patterns of intellectual exchange. As such, the articles included in this collection demonstrate the benefits of applying interdisciplinary approaches to eighteenth-century sociability, and their role in shedding new light on the way public opinion was formed and ideas disseminated during pre-modern times. The issues addressed by our contributors are of paramount importance for understanding the eighteenth-century culture of sociability. They address, among other things, clubbing practices and social networking strategies (political, cultural, gender-based) in the eighteenth-century world, the role of clubs and other associations in “improving” knowledge and behaviors, conflicting views on publicity, literary and political alliances and their importance for an emerging celebrity culture, the role of cross-national networks in launching pan-European and transatlantic trends, Romantic modes of sociability, as well as the contribution of voluntary associations (clubs, literary salons, communities of readers, etc.) to the formation of the public sphere. This collection demonstrates how relevant social networking strategies were to the context of the eighteenth-century world, and how similar they are to the congeries of new practices shaping the digital public sphere of today.
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443871354
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 350
Book Description
In an attempt to better account for the impressive diversity of positions and relations that characterizes the eighteenth-century world, this collection proposes a new methodological frame, one that is less hierarchical in approach and more focused, instead, on the nature of these interactions, on their Addisonian “usefulness,” declared goals, and (un)intended results. By shifting focus from a cultural-historicist approach to sociability to the rhizomatic nature of eighteenth-century associations, this collection approaches them through new methodological lenses that include social network analysis, assemblage and graph theory, social media and digital humanities scholarship. Imagining the eighteenth-century world as a networked community rather than a competing one reflects a recent interest in novel forms of social interaction facilitated by new social media—from Internet forums to various types of social networking sites—and also signals the increasing involvement of academic communities in digital humanities projects that use new technologies to map out patterns of intellectual exchange. As such, the articles included in this collection demonstrate the benefits of applying interdisciplinary approaches to eighteenth-century sociability, and their role in shedding new light on the way public opinion was formed and ideas disseminated during pre-modern times. The issues addressed by our contributors are of paramount importance for understanding the eighteenth-century culture of sociability. They address, among other things, clubbing practices and social networking strategies (political, cultural, gender-based) in the eighteenth-century world, the role of clubs and other associations in “improving” knowledge and behaviors, conflicting views on publicity, literary and political alliances and their importance for an emerging celebrity culture, the role of cross-national networks in launching pan-European and transatlantic trends, Romantic modes of sociability, as well as the contribution of voluntary associations (clubs, literary salons, communities of readers, etc.) to the formation of the public sphere. This collection demonstrates how relevant social networking strategies were to the context of the eighteenth-century world, and how similar they are to the congeries of new practices shaping the digital public sphere of today.
After Marriage in the Long Eighteenth Century
Author: Jenny DiPlacidi
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319600982
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 218
Book Description
This book examines the intersections between the ways that marriage was represented in eighteenth-century writing and art, experienced in society, and regulated by law. The interdisciplinary and comparative essays explore the marital experience beyond the ‘matrimonial barrier’ to encompass representations of married life including issues of spousal abuse, parenting, incest, infidelity and the period after the end of marriage, to include annulment, widowhood and divorce. The chapters range from these focuses on legal and social histories of marriage to treatments of marriage in eighteenth-century periodicals, to depictions of married couples and families in eighteenth-century art, to parallels in French literature and diaries, to representations of violence and marriage in Gothic novels, and to surveys of same-sex partnerships. The volume is aimed towards students and scholars working in the long eighteenth century, gender studies, women’s writing, publishing history, and art and legal historians.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319600982
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 218
Book Description
This book examines the intersections between the ways that marriage was represented in eighteenth-century writing and art, experienced in society, and regulated by law. The interdisciplinary and comparative essays explore the marital experience beyond the ‘matrimonial barrier’ to encompass representations of married life including issues of spousal abuse, parenting, incest, infidelity and the period after the end of marriage, to include annulment, widowhood and divorce. The chapters range from these focuses on legal and social histories of marriage to treatments of marriage in eighteenth-century periodicals, to depictions of married couples and families in eighteenth-century art, to parallels in French literature and diaries, to representations of violence and marriage in Gothic novels, and to surveys of same-sex partnerships. The volume is aimed towards students and scholars working in the long eighteenth century, gender studies, women’s writing, publishing history, and art and legal historians.
Novel Bodies
Author: Jason S. Farr
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 1684481090
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 207
Book Description
Novel Bodies examines how disability shapes the British literary history of sexuality. Jason Farr shows that various eighteenth-century novelists represent disability and sexuality in flexible ways to reconfigure the political and social landscapes of eighteenth-century Britain. In imagining the lived experience of disability as analogous to—and as informed by—queer genders and sexualities, the authors featured in Novel Bodies expose emerging ideas of able-bodiedness and heterosexuality as interconnected systems that sustain dominant models of courtship, reproduction, and degeneracy. Further, Farr argues that they use intersections of disability and queerness to stage an array of contemporaneous debates covering topics as wide-ranging as education, feminism, domesticity, medicine, and plantation life. In his close attention to the fiction of Eliza Haywood, Samuel Richardson, Sarah Scott, Maria Edgeworth, and Frances Burney, Farr demonstrates that disabled and queer characters inhabit strict social orders in unconventional ways, and thus opened up new avenues of expression for readers from the eighteenth century forward. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 1684481090
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 207
Book Description
Novel Bodies examines how disability shapes the British literary history of sexuality. Jason Farr shows that various eighteenth-century novelists represent disability and sexuality in flexible ways to reconfigure the political and social landscapes of eighteenth-century Britain. In imagining the lived experience of disability as analogous to—and as informed by—queer genders and sexualities, the authors featured in Novel Bodies expose emerging ideas of able-bodiedness and heterosexuality as interconnected systems that sustain dominant models of courtship, reproduction, and degeneracy. Further, Farr argues that they use intersections of disability and queerness to stage an array of contemporaneous debates covering topics as wide-ranging as education, feminism, domesticity, medicine, and plantation life. In his close attention to the fiction of Eliza Haywood, Samuel Richardson, Sarah Scott, Maria Edgeworth, and Frances Burney, Farr demonstrates that disabled and queer characters inhabit strict social orders in unconventional ways, and thus opened up new avenues of expression for readers from the eighteenth century forward. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.
Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi
Author: Marianna D’Ezio
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443818917
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 285
Book Description
Scholars and readers who are interested in eighteenth-century British literature are surely familiar with Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi in the light she came to be known in her lifetime and after: first, as the “formidable hostess” of Streatham House, South London, and then as an outcast from respectable eighteenth-century society after she had married the Italian piano teacher of her daughter. As a writer, her importance has long been that of a footnote to Samuel Johnson and as a consequence, she has been part of the official British literary canon only as a character. This volume introduces Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi as a whole, trying to link her fascinating and subversive biography to her development as a writer, emphasizing the innovative issues of her works, her style and her social and personal beliefs. Piozzi’s biography is an interesting example of the dynamic scene of the late eighteenth century, where she was both conservative and subversive: she was an eccentric, and although her decision to marry the Italian singer and composer Gabriele Piozzi disgraced her, it was through this act of subversion that Hester Thrale Piozzi could finally make her own entrance into the world as a public writer. Once she had transgressed the social codes of so-called “feminine” behaviour, she was also ready to move into the public sphere, publish her works and make money out of them, pioneering several traditional literary genres through her passionate search for professional independence in the literary canon of the eighteenth century.
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443818917
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 285
Book Description
Scholars and readers who are interested in eighteenth-century British literature are surely familiar with Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi in the light she came to be known in her lifetime and after: first, as the “formidable hostess” of Streatham House, South London, and then as an outcast from respectable eighteenth-century society after she had married the Italian piano teacher of her daughter. As a writer, her importance has long been that of a footnote to Samuel Johnson and as a consequence, she has been part of the official British literary canon only as a character. This volume introduces Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi as a whole, trying to link her fascinating and subversive biography to her development as a writer, emphasizing the innovative issues of her works, her style and her social and personal beliefs. Piozzi’s biography is an interesting example of the dynamic scene of the late eighteenth century, where she was both conservative and subversive: she was an eccentric, and although her decision to marry the Italian singer and composer Gabriele Piozzi disgraced her, it was through this act of subversion that Hester Thrale Piozzi could finally make her own entrance into the world as a public writer. Once she had transgressed the social codes of so-called “feminine” behaviour, she was also ready to move into the public sphere, publish her works and make money out of them, pioneering several traditional literary genres through her passionate search for professional independence in the literary canon of the eighteenth century.
Protest in the Long Eighteenth Century
Author: Yvonne Fuentes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000393135
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 279
Book Description
This edited collection of essays focuses on the topic of protest during the Enlightenment of the long eighteenth century (roughly 1670-1833). Resistance in the eighteenth century was extensive, and the act of protest to foment meaningful societal change took on many forms from the circulation of ballads, swearing of oaths, to riots and work stoppages, or the composition of essays, novels, posters, caricatures, political cartoons, as well as theater and opera. The contributors to this volume examine the causes of protest as well as the broad ways in which common artifacts such as poles, trees, drums, conchs, and songs acted as flashpoints for conflict and vehicles of protest. Rather than approaching the topic with strict geographical, temporal, and structural limitations, this book focuses on the time period from an international perspective and an interdisciplinary scope. Because of its wide scope, this book is an important contribution to the subject that will be of interest to both faculty and students of the history of protest, resistance and the changes that these forces bring as it also reminds us that the protests of today are rooted in historical resistances of the past.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000393135
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 279
Book Description
This edited collection of essays focuses on the topic of protest during the Enlightenment of the long eighteenth century (roughly 1670-1833). Resistance in the eighteenth century was extensive, and the act of protest to foment meaningful societal change took on many forms from the circulation of ballads, swearing of oaths, to riots and work stoppages, or the composition of essays, novels, posters, caricatures, political cartoons, as well as theater and opera. The contributors to this volume examine the causes of protest as well as the broad ways in which common artifacts such as poles, trees, drums, conchs, and songs acted as flashpoints for conflict and vehicles of protest. Rather than approaching the topic with strict geographical, temporal, and structural limitations, this book focuses on the time period from an international perspective and an interdisciplinary scope. Because of its wide scope, this book is an important contribution to the subject that will be of interest to both faculty and students of the history of protest, resistance and the changes that these forces bring as it also reminds us that the protests of today are rooted in historical resistances of the past.
Transatlantic Literature of the Long Eighteenth Century
Author: Julie A. Chappell
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443833142
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 115
Book Description
In 1789, before the abolition of slavery in Great Britain or the United States of America, poet William Blake quietly appealed to the public’s sense of humanity in Songs of Innocence with the poem, “The Little Black Boy.” In that same year, a former slave named Olaudah Equiano was catapulted to fame as a sympathetic face for the abolitionist movement with the publication of his autobiography. Olaudah Equiano became an internationally sought after public speaker and enjoyed the remarkable success of nine editions of his book within the five year span between 1789 and 1794, making him the wealthiest black man in the English-speaking world. Transatlantic Literature of the Long Eighteenth Century, edited by Kamille Stone Stanton and Julie A. Chappell, contributes to that growing body of nuanced textual criticism seeking to prove that the progress of the anti-slavery movement was actually no single-authored sensation but rather part of a broader transatlantic discourse spanning the entirety of the long eighteenth century.
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443833142
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 115
Book Description
In 1789, before the abolition of slavery in Great Britain or the United States of America, poet William Blake quietly appealed to the public’s sense of humanity in Songs of Innocence with the poem, “The Little Black Boy.” In that same year, a former slave named Olaudah Equiano was catapulted to fame as a sympathetic face for the abolitionist movement with the publication of his autobiography. Olaudah Equiano became an internationally sought after public speaker and enjoyed the remarkable success of nine editions of his book within the five year span between 1789 and 1794, making him the wealthiest black man in the English-speaking world. Transatlantic Literature of the Long Eighteenth Century, edited by Kamille Stone Stanton and Julie A. Chappell, contributes to that growing body of nuanced textual criticism seeking to prove that the progress of the anti-slavery movement was actually no single-authored sensation but rather part of a broader transatlantic discourse spanning the entirety of the long eighteenth century.
Words, Books, Images, and the Long Eighteenth Century
Author: Antoinina Bevan Zlatar
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027258449
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 270
Book Description
The essays collected in this volume engage in a conversation among lexicography, the culture of the book, and the canonization and commemoration of English literary figures and their works in the long eighteenth century. The source of inspiration for each piece is Allen Reddick’s scholarship on Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the great English lexicographer whose Dictionary (1755) included thousands upon thousands of illustrative quotations from the “best” authors, and, more recently, on Thomas Hollis (1720-1774), the much less well-known bibliophile who sent gifts of books by a pantheon of Whig authors to individuals and libraries in Britain, Protestant bastions in continental Europe, and America. Between the covers of Words, Books, Images readers will encounter canonical English authors of prose and poetry—Bacon, Milton, Defoe, Dryden, Pope, Richardson, Swift, Byron, Mary Shelley, and Edward Lear. But they will also become acquainted with the agents of their canonization and commemoration—the printers and publishers of Grub Street, the biographer John Aubrey, the lexicographer and biographer Johnson, the bibliophile Hollis, and the portrait painter Reynolds. No less crucially, they will meet fellow readers of then and now—women and men who peruse, poach, snip, and savour a book’s every word and image.
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027258449
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 270
Book Description
The essays collected in this volume engage in a conversation among lexicography, the culture of the book, and the canonization and commemoration of English literary figures and their works in the long eighteenth century. The source of inspiration for each piece is Allen Reddick’s scholarship on Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the great English lexicographer whose Dictionary (1755) included thousands upon thousands of illustrative quotations from the “best” authors, and, more recently, on Thomas Hollis (1720-1774), the much less well-known bibliophile who sent gifts of books by a pantheon of Whig authors to individuals and libraries in Britain, Protestant bastions in continental Europe, and America. Between the covers of Words, Books, Images readers will encounter canonical English authors of prose and poetry—Bacon, Milton, Defoe, Dryden, Pope, Richardson, Swift, Byron, Mary Shelley, and Edward Lear. But they will also become acquainted with the agents of their canonization and commemoration—the printers and publishers of Grub Street, the biographer John Aubrey, the lexicographer and biographer Johnson, the bibliophile Hollis, and the portrait painter Reynolds. No less crucially, they will meet fellow readers of then and now—women and men who peruse, poach, snip, and savour a book’s every word and image.
Book Illustration in the Long Eighteenth Century
Author: Christina Ionescu
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443873098
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 620
Book Description
Hitherto relegated to the closets of art history and literary studies, book illustration has entered mainstream scholarship. The chapters of this collection offer only a glimpse of where a complete reconfiguration of the visual periphery of eighteenth-century texts might ultimately take us. The use of the gerund of the verb “to reconfigure” in the subtitle of this collection, instead of the corresponding noun, underlines the work-in-progress character of this interdisciplinary endeavour, which aims above all to discern new vistas while charting or revisiting landmarks in the rich field of eighteenth-century book illustration. The specific interpretive lenses through which contributors to this collection re-evaluate the visual periphery of the text cover an array of disciplines and areas of interest; among these, the most prominent are book history and print culture, art history and image theory, material and visual culture, word and image interaction, feminist theory and gender studies, history of medicine and technology. This spectrum could have been even less restrictive and more colourful if it were not for pragmatic and editorial considerations. Nonetheless, its plurality of vision provides a framework for an inclusive and multifaceted approach to eighteenth-century book illustration. Perhaps these essays are most valuable in the practical models they provide on how to tackle the interdisciplinary challenge that is the study of the eighteenth-century illustrated book. The collection as such is the first formal step in an effort to rethink or reconfigure the visual periphery of eighteenth-century texts. It has become clear that the study of the illustrated book of the Age of Enlightenment has the potential of yielding multiple findings, perspectives and discourses about a society immersed in visual culture, skilled in visual communication and reflected in the visual legacy it left behind.
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443873098
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 620
Book Description
Hitherto relegated to the closets of art history and literary studies, book illustration has entered mainstream scholarship. The chapters of this collection offer only a glimpse of where a complete reconfiguration of the visual periphery of eighteenth-century texts might ultimately take us. The use of the gerund of the verb “to reconfigure” in the subtitle of this collection, instead of the corresponding noun, underlines the work-in-progress character of this interdisciplinary endeavour, which aims above all to discern new vistas while charting or revisiting landmarks in the rich field of eighteenth-century book illustration. The specific interpretive lenses through which contributors to this collection re-evaluate the visual periphery of the text cover an array of disciplines and areas of interest; among these, the most prominent are book history and print culture, art history and image theory, material and visual culture, word and image interaction, feminist theory and gender studies, history of medicine and technology. This spectrum could have been even less restrictive and more colourful if it were not for pragmatic and editorial considerations. Nonetheless, its plurality of vision provides a framework for an inclusive and multifaceted approach to eighteenth-century book illustration. Perhaps these essays are most valuable in the practical models they provide on how to tackle the interdisciplinary challenge that is the study of the eighteenth-century illustrated book. The collection as such is the first formal step in an effort to rethink or reconfigure the visual periphery of eighteenth-century texts. It has become clear that the study of the illustrated book of the Age of Enlightenment has the potential of yielding multiple findings, perspectives and discourses about a society immersed in visual culture, skilled in visual communication and reflected in the visual legacy it left behind.
Before the Empire of English: Literature, Provinciality, and Nationalism in Eighteenth-Century Britain
Author: A. Yadav
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1403981159
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
Before the Empire of English offers a broad re-examination of Eighteenth-century British literary culture, centred around issues of language, nationalism, and provinciality. It revises our tendency to take for granted the metropolitan centrality of English-language writers of this period and shows, instead, how deeply these writers were conscious of the traditional marginality of their literary tradition in the European world of culture. The book focuses attention on crucial but largely overlooked aspects of Eighteenth-century English literary culture: the progress of English topos since the death of Cowley and the cultural aspirations and anxieties it condenses; the concept of the republic of letters and its implications for issues of cultural centrality and provinciality; and the importance of cultural nationalist emphases in 'Augustan' poetics in the context of these concerns about provinciality. The book examines imperial aspirations and imaginings in the English literary culture of the period, but it shows how such aspirations are responses to provincial anxieties more so than they are marks of imperial self-assurance.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1403981159
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
Before the Empire of English offers a broad re-examination of Eighteenth-century British literary culture, centred around issues of language, nationalism, and provinciality. It revises our tendency to take for granted the metropolitan centrality of English-language writers of this period and shows, instead, how deeply these writers were conscious of the traditional marginality of their literary tradition in the European world of culture. The book focuses attention on crucial but largely overlooked aspects of Eighteenth-century English literary culture: the progress of English topos since the death of Cowley and the cultural aspirations and anxieties it condenses; the concept of the republic of letters and its implications for issues of cultural centrality and provinciality; and the importance of cultural nationalist emphases in 'Augustan' poetics in the context of these concerns about provinciality. The book examines imperial aspirations and imaginings in the English literary culture of the period, but it shows how such aspirations are responses to provincial anxieties more so than they are marks of imperial self-assurance.