The English Cult of Literature

The English Cult of Literature PDF Author: William R. McKelvy
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 9780813925714
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
What constitutes reading? This is the question William McKelvy asks in The English Cult of Literature. Is it a theory of interpretation or a physical activity, a process determined by hermeneutic destiny or by paper, ink, hands, and eyes? McKelvy seeks to transform the nineteenth-century field of "Religion and Literature" into "Reading and Religion," emphasizing both the material and the institutional contexts for each. In doing so, he hopes to recover the ways in which modern literary authority developed in dialogue with a politically reconfigured religious authority.The received wisdom has been that England's literary tradition was modernity's most promising religion because the established forms of Christianity, wounded in the Enlightenment, inevitably gave up their hold on the imagination and on the political sphere. Through a series of case studies and analysis of a diverse range of writing, this work gives life to a very different story, one that shows literature assuming a religious vocation in concert with an increasingly unencumbered freedom of religious confession and the making of a reading nation. In the process the author shifts attention away from the idea of the literary critic in favor of considering the historic role of religious professionals in shaping and contesting the authority of print.Indebted to recent findings of book history and newer historiographies at odds with conventional secularization theory, this work makes an interdisciplinary contribution to revising the existing models for understanding change in Britain during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The English Cult of Literature

The English Cult of Literature PDF Author: William R. McKelvy
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 9780813925714
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348

Get Book Here

Book Description
What constitutes reading? This is the question William McKelvy asks in The English Cult of Literature. Is it a theory of interpretation or a physical activity, a process determined by hermeneutic destiny or by paper, ink, hands, and eyes? McKelvy seeks to transform the nineteenth-century field of "Religion and Literature" into "Reading and Religion," emphasizing both the material and the institutional contexts for each. In doing so, he hopes to recover the ways in which modern literary authority developed in dialogue with a politically reconfigured religious authority.The received wisdom has been that England's literary tradition was modernity's most promising religion because the established forms of Christianity, wounded in the Enlightenment, inevitably gave up their hold on the imagination and on the political sphere. Through a series of case studies and analysis of a diverse range of writing, this work gives life to a very different story, one that shows literature assuming a religious vocation in concert with an increasingly unencumbered freedom of religious confession and the making of a reading nation. In the process the author shifts attention away from the idea of the literary critic in favor of considering the historic role of religious professionals in shaping and contesting the authority of print.Indebted to recent findings of book history and newer historiographies at odds with conventional secularization theory, this work makes an interdisciplinary contribution to revising the existing models for understanding change in Britain during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Representations of France in English Satirical Prints 1740-1832

Representations of France in English Satirical Prints 1740-1832 PDF Author: J. Moores
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137380144
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
Between 1740 and 1832, England witnessed what has been called its 'golden age of caricature', coinciding with intense rivalry and with war with France. This book shows how Georgian satirical prints reveal attitudes towards the French 'Other' that were far more complex, ambivalent, empathetic and multifaceted than has previously been recognised.

Gambling in Britain in the Long Eighteenth Century

Gambling in Britain in the Long Eighteenth Century PDF Author: Bob Harris
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316512444
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
This new account of gambling in Britain in the long eighteenth century investigates who gambled, on what, and why.

The Routledge Companion to Britain in the Eighteenth Century

The Routledge Companion to Britain in the Eighteenth Century PDF Author: Jeremy Gregory
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136008381
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 514

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Book Description
Enormously rich and wide-ranging, The Routledge Companion to Britain in the Eighteenth Century brings together, in one handy reference, a wide range of essential information on the major aspects of eighteenth century British history. The information included is chronological, statistical, tabular and bibliographical, and the book begins with the eighteenth century political system before going on to cover foreign affairs and the empire, the major military and naval campaigns, law and order, religion, economic and financial advances, and social and cultural history. Key features of this user-friendly volume include: wide-ranging political chronologies major wars and rebellions key treaties and their terms chronologies of religious events approximately 500 biographies of leading figures essential data on population, output and trade a detailed glossary of terms a comprehensive cultural and intellectual chronology set out in tabular form a uniquely detailed and comprehensive topic bibliography. All those studying or teaching eighteenth century British history will find this concise volume an indispensable resource for use and reference.

British History 1815-1914

British History 1815-1914 PDF Author: Norman McCord
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199261644
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 613

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Book Description
This fully revised and updated new edition, extended to cover the period up to 1914, provides the ultimate introduction to British history between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the outbreak of the First World War.

Transatlantic Radicals and the Early American Republic

Transatlantic Radicals and the Early American Republic PDF Author: Michael Durey
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
In the transatlantic world of the late eighteenth century, easterly winds blew radical thought to America. Thomas Paine had already arrived on these shores in 1774 and made his mark as a radical pamphleteer during the Revolution. In his wake followed more than 200 other radical exiles—English Dissenters, Whigs, and Painites; Scottish "lads o'parts"; and Irish patriots—who became influential newspaper writers and editors and helped change the nature of political discourse in a young nation. Michael Durey has written the first full-scale analysis of these radicals, evaluating the long-term influence their ideas have had on American political thought. Transatlantic Radicals uncovers the roots of their radicalism in the Old World and tells the story of how these men came to be exiled, how they emigrated, and how they participated in the politics of their adopted country. Nearly all of these radicals looked to Paine as their spiritual leader and to Thomas Jefferson as their political champion. They held egalitarian, anti-federalist values and promoted an extreme form of participatory democracy that found a niche in the radical wing of Jefferson's Republican Party. Their divided views on slavery, however, reveal that democratic republicanism was unable to cope with the realities of that institution. As political activists during the 1790s, they proved crucial to Jefferson's 1800 presidential victory; then, after his views moderated and their influence waned, many repatriated, others drifted into anonymity, and a few managed to find success in the New World. Although many of these men are known to us through other histories, their influence as a group has never before been so closely examined. Durey persuasively demonstrates that the intellectual ferment in Britain did indeed have tremendous influence on American politics. His account of that influence sheds considerable light on transatlantic political history and differences in religious, political, and economic freedoms. Skillfully balancing a large cast of characters, Transatlantic Radicals depicts the diversity of their experiences and shows how crucial these reluctant émigrés were to shaping our republic in its formative years.

The English and Their History

The English and Their History PDF Author: Robert Tombs
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1101874775
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1074

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Book Description
A New York Times 2016 Notable Book Robert Tombs’s momentous The English and Their History is both a startlingly fresh and a uniquely inclusive account of the people who have a claim to be the oldest nation in the world. The English first came into existence as an idea, before they had a common ruler and before the country they lived in even had a name. They have lasted as a recognizable entity ever since, and their defining national institutions can be traced back to the earliest years of their history. The English have come a long way from those first precarious days of invasion and conquest, with many spectacular changes of fortune. Their political, economic and cultural contacts have left traces for good and ill across the world. This book describes their history and its meanings from their beginnings in the monasteries of Northumbria and the wetlands of Wessex to the cosmopolitan energy of today’s England. Robert Tombs draws out important threads running through the story, including participatory government, language, law, religion, the land and the sea, and ever-changing relations with other peoples. Not the least of these connections are the ways the English have understood their own history, have argued about it, forgotten it and yet been shaped by it. These diverse and sometimes conflicting understandings are an inherent part of their identity. Rather to their surprise, as ties within the United Kingdom loosen, the English are suddenly embarking on a new chapter. The English and Their History, the first single-volume work on this scale for more than half a century, and which incorporates a wealth of recent scholarship, presents a challenging modern account of this immense and continuing story, bringing out the strength and resilience of English government, the deep patterns of division and also the persistent capacity to come together in the face of danger.

British Society 1680-1880

British Society 1680-1880 PDF Author: Richard Price
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521657013
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
A major interpretation of British history in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Bugs and the Victorians

Bugs and the Victorians PDF Author: John F. M. Clark
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300150911
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
This text explores how science became increasingly important in 19th century British culture and how the systematic study of insects permitted entomologists to engage with the most pressing questions of Victorian times: the nature of God, mind, and governance, and the origins of life.

Cockburn and the British Navy in Transition

Cockburn and the British Navy in Transition PDF Author: Roger Morriss
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 9781570032530
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
How one British admiral changed the course of naval history Cockburn and the British Navy in Transition documents the long and varied career of Admiral Sir George Cockburn, who presided over much of the British Navy's transition from sail to steam while maintaining the interests and professionalism of the officer corps. Cockburn's life and times encompassed service under Admiral Horatio Nelson during the French Revolutionary War; diplomacy and combined operations during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812 with the United States; and administrative, political, and technological changes during the first half of the nineteenth century. Cockburn emerged from the Napoleonic Wars as the best-known British admiral, renowned for his part in the attack on Washington in 1814 and for escorting Napoleon to St. Helena. But his greatest impact was from 1818 to 1846 at the Admiralty Office, where he steered the British Navy through some of the most disruptive political and technological changes it has ever faced. Cockburn's attitude towards the development of more seaworthy sailing warships and his key role in the introduction of the screw propeller are also examined--inovations that coincided with the decline of flogging, impressment, and personal patronage in the management of the British Navy. Though Cockburn was often regarded as a reactionary, Roger Morriss reveals the liberalism that enlightened his policies in the Navy. By providing unique insight into a highly influential figure and into the many facets of admiralty administration, this book makes a valuable contribution to naval history.