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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... discussions of genre have set aside the idea that genres are abstract fixities. On the contrary, it is argued, genre should be seen as an important instrument of literary communication that always remains open to revision as authors ...
... discussion. Exploration of inward and every- day experience was a growing preoccupation of postrevolutionary Britain ... discussing his own appendix on manners, arts, and learning, calls Henry,s work “far the most valuable compilation we ...
... discussion of belles lettres as a whole. In the more detailed description that follows, Blair will go on to modify the classical outline in a number of important ways (see chapter 1), but the gravity of this initial pronouncement well ...
... discussions. Though the effort is likely to seem overly schematic, as definitional exercises always are, it would be worse to begin by simply assuming that we know what histories are and what place they held within the literary system ...
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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 |