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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... Scottish one. But there is no doubt in my mind that it is also a European episode and especially a French one. The justifications for drawing a boundary around a national literature are certainly as much pragmatic as intellectual, and I ...
... Scottish political economy, followed by Smith,s Wealth of Nations (1776). Philosophical history came into its own with the appearance of Hume,s History of England, the first two volumes of which were published in 1754 and 1757, and with ...
... Scottish enquiry,” though Hume, Smith, and their contemporaries certainly played a central part in this reconfiguration. It is important, however, to avoid the impression that these philosophers were the discoverers of a brave new ...
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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 |