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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... society. Eighteenth-century so- cial analysis no longer permitted a definition of history that restricted itself to the conventional narrative of politics—the story of the public actions of public men. The result, it is important to ...
... society keenly aware of how much it owed to the power of trade. Inherited traditions of historical narrative needed to be reshaped so that the political class of a commercial empire could examine and celebrate a history recognizably ...
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 |