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 57
... Women, and Literature 147 7. Conjectural History: A History of Manners and of Mind 171 CONTINUITIES 191 8. James Mackintosh: The Historian as Reader 193 9. Burke, Mackintosh, and the Idea of Tradition 220 LITERARY HISTORY, MEMOIR, AND ...
... -Century Studies 26 (1992): 1–27; and Cheryl Turner, Living by the Pen: Women Writers in the Eighteenth Century (London: Routledge, 1992). 16 In this context, it is worth considering the contrasting SCENES OF SOCIAL LIFE 11.
... women as well as of men, of “rude nations” living without the institution of property, as well as of those of commercial societies. But this diversity of subject matter was only a part of the problem; a further challenge was added by ...
... women into history, but it also made both men and women creatures of custom and habit. These and other reciprocities mean that the literatures most adapted to exploring inward and affective experience—biography, the novel, and vari- ous ...
... women at all stages of history, and most men in private life also lacked the capacity to act in this traditional sense. Nonetheless, the new frameworks of social discourse demanded that their experiences somehow be included. In this ...
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 |