Society and Sentiment: Genres of Historical Writing in Britain, 1740-1820Princeton University Press, 2000 M05 1 - 369 pages A deepening interest in both social and interior experience was a distinguishing feature of the cultural life of eighteenth-century Britain, influencing writers in all genres from fiction to philosophy. Focusing on this interplay of ideas and genres, Mark Phillips explores the ways in which writers and readers of history, memoir, biography and related literatures responded to the social and sentimental concerns of a modern, commercial society. He shows that the writing of history, which once concentrated exclusively on political events, widened its horizons in ways that often paralleled better-known developments in the contemporary novel. Ultimately, Phillips proposes a new model for the study of historiographical narrative. Countering tropological readings identified with Hayden White, he offers a more historically nuanced approach that stresses questions of genre and reception as a guide to understanding how narratives were reshaped by new audiences and new social needs. |
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... Enlightenment: Cos- mopolitan History from Voltaire to Gibbon (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997) unfortunately reached me too late for me to make any detailed use of its findings, but readers will find a number of points of convergence. 2 ...
... Enlightenment is no more than a preliminary: at best a foreshadowing, at worst an obstacle to the achievement of methodological or philosophical maturity. Such simplifications are probably unavoidable in historical schemas built on ...
... Enlightenment and, recip- rocally, to explore the ways in which those who read history as well as those who wrote it responded to the social and sentimental interests of the age. It seems to me unquestionable that the eighteenth century ...
... enlightened spirit of modern times, things are much altered in this respect. Readers now expect to find, not only the warlike exploits, but the civil transactions, of princes, recorded in the historic volume. The people claim their ...
... Enlightenment historiography—abandoned conventional narrative entirely in favor of didactic formats, thus bringing history into line with other literatures of instruction. The heuristic I have outlined can be useful in two ways. First ...
Other editions - View all
Society and Sentiment: Genres of Historical Writing in Britain, 1740-1820 Mark Phillips No preview available - 2000 |
Society and Sentiment: Genres of Historical Writing in Britain, 1740-1820 Mark Phillips No preview available - 2000 |