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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 91
... historians see their relationship with students of historiography. Professional historians generally see themselves as skillful fisherman, and though they certainly have no objection to swapping a few good stories now and again, they ...
... historians. Even so, their interest generally lies in the doctrines and commitments that link history to other ... historian, I begin with a sense that my subject should include the full range of historical writing, noncanonical as ...
... historians to complain about the critical attention fiction naturally attracts. The point, rather, is to emulate ... historian once said to me in an unguarded moment, “I always think of historiography as something we do when we can't ...
... historian.2 Yet remarkably, Henry also saw that this degree of self- discipline in the writer opened a kind of freedom for his readers. For them, it meant the possibility of following their own interests, choosing those “particu- lar ...
... Historian divides it himself, into seven parts . . . so that for every evening of the week there will be a different subject.”3 Austen counted off each branch of Henry's sevenfold narrative, remarking, “The Friday's lot, Commerce, Coin ...
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 |