Literature and the Social Order in Eighteenth-Century England

Literature and the Social Order in Eighteenth-Century England PDF Author: Stephen Copley
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000031063
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
Recent scholarship had emphasised the importance of a number of non-literary, economic and social debates to the understanding of Augustan Literature. Debates over the place of land, money, credit and luxury in society, as well as strands of radical thinking, are prominent throughout the period. Originally published in 1984, this anthology of eighteenth century writings about contemporary society is divided into sections on the social order, economics, the poor and crime, with a general introduction identifying some of the dominant social discourses of the period. They reflect the emergence of an embryonic capitalist society, with its challenge to feudal ties, and of a nascent bourgeois class. This collection of writings is not intended to provide material for an empirical historical account of these changes, but to give some idea of the ideological terms in which they are perceived, endorsed or contested by contemporaries; and provide a set of discursive contexts in which the imaginative literature of the period can be read. The texts themselves repay close analysis as the bearers of complex ideological positions and it is interesting to observe how, for example, Pope accommodates Shaftesbury and Mandeville in the Moral Essays. A fascinating anthology, Literature and the Social Order in Eighteenth-Century England, complete with editor’s introduction and notes on the passages, aims to suggest lines of inquiry without offering a ‘total’ reading.

Literature and the Social Order in Eighteenth-Century England

Literature and the Social Order in Eighteenth-Century England PDF Author: Stephen Copley
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000031063
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
Recent scholarship had emphasised the importance of a number of non-literary, economic and social debates to the understanding of Augustan Literature. Debates over the place of land, money, credit and luxury in society, as well as strands of radical thinking, are prominent throughout the period. Originally published in 1984, this anthology of eighteenth century writings about contemporary society is divided into sections on the social order, economics, the poor and crime, with a general introduction identifying some of the dominant social discourses of the period. They reflect the emergence of an embryonic capitalist society, with its challenge to feudal ties, and of a nascent bourgeois class. This collection of writings is not intended to provide material for an empirical historical account of these changes, but to give some idea of the ideological terms in which they are perceived, endorsed or contested by contemporaries; and provide a set of discursive contexts in which the imaginative literature of the period can be read. The texts themselves repay close analysis as the bearers of complex ideological positions and it is interesting to observe how, for example, Pope accommodates Shaftesbury and Mandeville in the Moral Essays. A fascinating anthology, Literature and the Social Order in Eighteenth-Century England, complete with editor’s introduction and notes on the passages, aims to suggest lines of inquiry without offering a ‘total’ reading.

Literature and the social order eighteenth-century England

Literature and the social order eighteenth-century England PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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British Fiction and the Production of Social Order, 1740-1830

British Fiction and the Production of Social Order, 1740-1830 PDF Author: Miranda J. Burgess
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521773294
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Burgess places authors such as Scott and Wollstonecraft in a new economic and social context.

English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century

English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century PDF Author: Sir Leslie Stephen
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
ISBN: 1465506985
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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Book Description
When I was honoured by the invitation to deliver this course of lectures, I did not accept without some hesitation. I am not qualified to speak with authority upon such subjects as have been treated by my predecessors—the course of political events or the growth of legal institutions. My attention has been chiefly paid to the history of literature, and it might be doubtful whether that study is properly included in the phrase 'historical.' Yet literature expresses men's thoughts and passions, which have, after all, a considerable influence upon their lives. The writer of a people's songs, as we are told, may even have a more powerful influence than the maker of their laws. He certainly reveals more directly the true springs of popular action. The truth has been admitted by many historians who are too much overwhelmed by state papers to find space for any extended application of the method. No one, I think, has shown more clearly how much light could be derived from this source than your Oxford historian J. R. Green, in some brilliant passages of his fascinating book. Moreover, if I may venture to speak of myself, my own interest in literature has always been closely connected with its philosophical and social significance. Literature may of course be studied simply for its own intrinsic merits. But it may also be regarded as one manifestation of what is called 'the spirit of the age.' I have, too, been much impressed by a further conclusion. No one doubts that the speculative movement affects the social and political—I think that less attention has been given to the reciprocal influence. The philosophy of a period is often treated as though it were the product of impartial and abstract investigation—something worked out by the great thinker in his study and developed by simple logical deductions from the positions established by his predecessors. To my mind, though I cannot now dwell upon the point, the philosophy of an age is in itself determined to a very great extent by the social position. It gives the solutions of the problems forced upon the reasoner by the practical conditions of his time. To understand why certain ideas become current, we have to consider not merely the ostensible logic but all the motives which led men to investigate the most pressing difficulties suggested by the social development. Obvious principles are always ready, like germs, to come to life when the congenial soil is provided. And what is true of the philosophy is equally, and perhaps more conspicuously, true of the artistic and literary embodiment of the dominant ideas which are correlated with the social movement.

English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century

English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century PDF Author: Sir Leslie Stephen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Degeneration
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Literature and Society in Eighteenth-century England, 1680-1820

Literature and Society in Eighteenth-century England, 1680-1820 PDF Author: William Arthur Speck
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : England
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
This is a broad-ranging study on the 18th century, using a variety of contemporary literary texts as historical evidence to explain the dominant ideologies and attitudes of the time and considering the implications on policy of an increasingly news-conscious and articulate society.

Women Writing Music in Late Eighteenth-Century England

Women Writing Music in Late Eighteenth-Century England PDF Author: Leslie Ritchie
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351536613
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Combining new musicology trends, formal musical analysis, and literary feminist recovery work, Leslie Ritchie examines rare poetic, didactic, fictional, and musical texts written by women in late eighteenth-century Britain. She finds instances of and resistance to contemporary perceptions of music as a form of social control in works by Maria Barth?mon, Harriett Abrams, Mary Worgan, Susanna Rowson, Hannah Cowley, and Amelia Opie, among others. Relating women's musical compositions and writings about music to theories of music's function in the formation of female subjectivities during the latter half of the eighteenth century, Ritchie draws on the work of cultural theorists and cultural historians, as well as feminist scholars who have explored the connection between femininity and performance. Whether crafting works consonant with societal ideals of charitable, natural, and national order, or re-imagining their participation in these musical aids to social harmony, women contributed significantly to the formation of British cultural identity. Ritchie's interdisciplinary book will interest scholars working in a range of fields, including gender studies, musicology, eighteenth-century British literature, and cultural studies.

English Society in the Eighteenth Century

English Society in the Eighteenth Century PDF Author: Roy Porter
Publisher: Penguin Group
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
This is a portrait of 18th century England, from its princes to its paupers, from its metropolis to its smallest hamlet. The topics covered include - diet, housing, prisons, rural festivals, bordellos, plays, paintings, and work and wages.

Eighteenth Century English Literature

Eighteenth Century English Literature PDF Author: Charlotte Sussman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745637205
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
This engaging book introduces new readers of eighteenth-century texts to some of the major works, authors, and debates of a key period of literary history. Rather than simply providing a chronological survey of the era, this book analyzes the impact of significant cultural developments on literary themes and forms - including urbanization, colonial, and mercantile expansion, the emergence of the "public sphere," and changes in sex and gender roles. In eighteenth-century Britain, many of the things we take for granted about modern life were shockingly new: women appeared for the first time on stage; the novel began to dominate the literary marketplace; people entertained the possibility that all human beings were created equal, and tentatively proposed that reason could triumph over superstition; ministers became more powerful than kings, and the consumer emerged as a political force. Eighteenth-Century English Literature: 1660-1789 explores these issues in relation to well-known works by such authors as Defoe, Swift, Pope, Richardson, Gray, and Sterne, while also bringing attention to less familiar figures, such as Charlotte Smith, Mary Leapor, and Olaudah Equiano. It offers both an ideal introduction for students and a fresh approach for those with research interests in the period.

English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century

English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century PDF Author: Leslie Stephen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : England
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description