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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... arts, useful and ornamental; (6) history of com- merce, and of prices and commodities; (7) manners, virtues, vices, remarkable customs, language, dress, diet, and diversions. Henry's arrangement was governed by two strong, but ...
... arts, commerce, and manners” (xxxiv). Are these sub- jects, he asked rhetorically, unworthy to be included in the history of a country where learning, arts, and commerce flourish? Should history be written As these comments indicate ...
... arts, which are the subject of the fifth chapter of every book, are dis- posed one after another in the same order of succession, in all the fifth chapters throughout the whole work. (xxxii–xxxiii) The rigid symmetries of this ...
... arts, and in knowledge, what could be more “natural, laudable, and useful” than the enlarged curiosity about the past. The historical horizon, in short, would stretch to match contemporary experience, incorporat- ing for the first time ...
... sentimental interests, who in discussing his own appendix on manners, arts, and learning, calls Henry,s work “far the most valuable compilation we possess.” The History of the Reign of Henry the SCENES OF SOCIAL LIFE 7.
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 |