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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... chapter 4 appeared in earlier form as “ 'If Mrs. Mure Be Not Sorry for Poor King Charles': History, the Novel, and the Sentimental Reader,” History Workshop Journal 43 (1997): 111–13. An earlier version of chapter 12 was published as ...
... chapters of the same number, in all the ten books, in the same order, as far as the subject treated of in these chapters would permit. For example: The arts, which are the subject of the fifth chapter of every book, are dis- posed one ...
... chapter 2.) A related advantage of the longer view is the opportunity it affords to exam- ine the assumption of continuity itself. If continuities are to be found across this long and eventful period, these must have been continually ...
... chapter 5, is a prime example.) Equally, older ideas may slip to the side,. 17 On the English sense of inferiority in historical writing, see Hicks, Neoclassical History and chapter 1 below. 18 Hugh Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles ...
... chapter 1), but the gravity of this initial pronouncement well represents his rather traditional sense of history's high moral purpose and decorum. If, however, we change the angle of questioning by placing under discussion a text that ...
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 |