A History of Eighteenth-Century British Literature

A History of Eighteenth-Century British Literature

Author: John Richetti

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2017-10-05

Total Pages: 429

ISBN-13: 1119082129

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A History of Eighteenth-Century British Literature is a lively exploration of one of the most diverse and innovative periods in literary history. Capturing the richness and excitement of the era, this book provides extensive coverage of major authors, poets, dramatists, and journalists of the period, such as Dryden, Pope and Swift, while also exploring the works of important writers who have received less attention by modern scholars, such as Matthew Prior and Charles Churchill. Uniquely, the book also discusses noncanonical, working-class writers and demotic works of the era. During the eighteenth-century, Britain experienced vast social, political, economic, and existential changes, greatly influencing the literary world. The major forms of verse, poetry, fiction and non-fiction, experimental works, drama, and political prose from writers such as Montagu, Finch, Johnson, Goldsmith and Cowper, are discussed here in relation to their historical context. A History of Eighteenth-Century British Literature is essential reading for advanced undergraduates and graduate students of English literature. Topics covered include: Verse in the early 18th century, from Pope, Gay, and Swift to Addison, Defoe, Montagu, and Finch Poetry from the mid- to late-century, highlighting the works of Johnson, Gray, Collins, Smart, Goldsmith, and Cowper among others, as well as women and working-class poets Prose Fiction in the early and 18th century, including Behn, Haywood, Defoe, Swift, Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett The novel past mid-century, including experimental works by Johnson, Sterne, Mackenzie, Walpole, Goldsmith, and Burney Non-fiction prose, including political and polemical prose 18th century drama


The Enlightenment and the Book

The Enlightenment and the Book

Author: Richard B. Sher

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2008-09-15

Total Pages: 842

ISBN-13: 0226752542

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The late eighteenth century witnessed an explosion of intellectual activity in Scotland by such luminaries as David Hume, Adam Smith, Hugh Blair, William Robertson, Adam Ferguson, James Boswell, and Robert Burns. And the books written by these seminal thinkers made a significant mark during their time in almost every field of polite literature and higher learning throughout Britain, Europe, and the Americas. In this magisterial history, Richard B. Sher breaks new ground for our understanding of the Enlightenment and the forgotten role of publishing during that period. The Enlightenment and the Book seeks to remedy the common misperception that such classics as The Wealth of Nations and The Life of Samuel Johnson were written by authors who eyed their publishers as minor functionaries in their profession. To the contrary, Sher shows how the process of bookmaking during the late eighteenth-century involved a deeply complex partnership between authors and their publishers, one in which writers saw the book industry not only as pivotal in the dissemination of their ideas, but also as crucial to their dreams of fame and monetary gain. Similarly, Sher demonstrates that publishers were involved in the project of bookmaking in order to advance human knowledge as well as to accumulate profits. The Enlightenment and the Book explores this tension between creativity and commerce that still exists in scholarly publishing today. Lavishly illustrated and elegantly conceived, it will be must reading for anyone interested in the history of the book or the production and diffusion of Enlightenment thought.


The Cambridge Companion to the Eighteenth-Century Novel

The Cambridge Companion to the Eighteenth-Century Novel

Author: John Richetti

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1996-09-05

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 1139825046

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In the past twenty years our understanding of the novel's emergence in eighteenth-century Britain has drastically changed. Drawing on new research in social and political history, the twelve contributors to this Companion challenge and refine the traditional view of the novel's origins and purposes. In various ways each seeks to show that the novel is not defined primarily by its realism of representation, but by the new ideological and cultural functions it serves in the emerging modern world of print culture. Sentimental and Gothic fiction and fiction by women are discussed, alongside detailed readings of work by Defoe, Swift, Richardson, Henry Fielding, Sterne, Smollett, and Burney. This multifaceted picture of the novel in its formative decades provides a comprehensive and indispensable guide for students of the eighteenth-century British novel, and its place within the culture of its time.


Candide

Candide

Author: By Voltaire

Publisher: BookRix

Published: 2019-06-10

Total Pages: 169

ISBN-13: 3736801785

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Candide is a French satire by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. It begins with a young man, Candide, who is living a sheltered life in an Edenic paradise and being indoctrinated with Leibnizian optimism (or simply Optimism) by his mentor, Pangloss. The work describes the abrupt cessation of this lifestyle, followed by Candide's slow, painful disillusionment as he witnesses and experiences great hardships in the world. Voltaire concludes with Candide, if not rejecting optimism outright, advocating a deeply practical precept, "we must cultivate our garden", in lieu of the Leibnizian mantra of Pangloss, "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds". Candide is characterized by its sarcastic tone, as well as by its erratic, fantastical and fast-moving plot. A picaresque novel it parodies many adventure and romance clichés, the struggles of which are caricatured in a tone that is mordantly matter-of-fact. Still, the events discussed are often based on historical happenings, such as the Seven Years' War and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. As philosophers of Voltaire's day contended with the problem of evil, so too does Candide in this short novel, albeit more directly and humorously. Voltaire ridicules religion, theologians, governments, armies, philosophies, and philosophers through allegory; most conspicuously, he assaults Leibniz and his optimism. As expected by Voltaire, Candide has enjoyed both great success and great scandal. Immediately after its secretive publication, the book was widely banned because it contained religious blasphemy, political sedition and intellectual hostility hidden under a thin veil of naïveté. However, with its sharp wit and insightful portrayal of the human condition, the novel has since inspired many later authors and artists to mimic and adapt it. Today, Candide is recognized as Voltaire's magnum opus and is often listed as part of the Western canon; it is arguably taught more than any other work of French literature. It was listed as one of The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written.


Women's Lives and the 18th-century English Novel

Women's Lives and the 18th-century English Novel

Author: Elizabeth Bergen Brophy

Publisher: University Press of Florida

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 9780813010366

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Novels of the eighteenth century usually offer wedded bliss as a reward to their heroines. How did these novels affect—and how were they affected by—the women who were reading them? By drawing upon thousands of unpublished documents from the era, written by more than 250 women, Brophy creates a picture of the real lives of eighteenth-century women and then examines the work of seven novelists in relation to this portrait. Excerpts from letters, diaries, and journals, written by women ranging from servants to nobility, reveal the stages of feminine life in the 1700s: dutiful daughter, courted maiden, obedient wife, and pitiful widow or spinster. Their lives are assessed against those portrayed in the works of seven novelists—five women (Sarah Fielding, Charlotte Lennox, Sarah Scott, Clara Reeve and Fanny Burney) and two men (Henry Fielding and Samuel Richardson). Fiction both reflects and creates the values of its time. In the eighteenth century, marriage was regarded as every woman's vocation and the novel often reinforced this conviction. “Only leave me myself,” the heroine's plea in Richardson's Clarissa, laments the dependent position of women in the age. However, the novel also influenced the self-perception of eighteenth-century women in a positive way, Brophy asserts, by admiring their intelligence, by condemning sexual transgressions in and out of marriage, and, most important, by placing women at the center of their own stories, as heroines in their own right. The abundant primary materials and straightforward writing in Women's Lives and the Eigtheenth-Century English Novel make this a book of interest to scholars of social and cultural history and to students of the novel.


The Oxford Handbook of the Eighteenth-Century Novel

The Oxford Handbook of the Eighteenth-Century Novel

Author: J. A. Downie

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 625

ISBN-13: 0199566747

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The Oxford Handbook of the Eighteenth Century Novel is the first published book to cover the 'eighteenth-century English novel' in its entirety. It is an indispensible resource for those with an interest in the history of the novel.


The Novels and Novelists of the Eighteenth Century

The Novels and Novelists of the Eighteenth Century

Author: William Forsyth

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2023-04-01

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 3382163411

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Reprint of the original, first published in 1871. The publishing house Anatiposi publishes historical books as reprints. Due to their age, these books may have missing pages or inferior quality. Our aim is to preserve these books and make them available to the public so that they do not get lost.


Reading the Eighteenth-Century Novel

Reading the Eighteenth-Century Novel

Author: David H. Richter

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2017-05-01

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 1118621107

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Reading the Eighteenth-Century Novel is a lively exploration of the evolution of the English novel from 1688-1815. A range of major works and authors are discussed along with important developments in the genre, and the impact of novels on society at the time. The text begins with a discussion of the “rise of the novel” in the long eighteenth century and various theories about the economic, social, and ideological changes that caused it. Subsequent chapters examine ten particular novels, from Oroonoko and Moll Flanders to Tom Jones and Emma, using each one to introduce and discuss different rhetorical theories of narrative. The way in which books developed and changed during this period, breaking new ground, and influencing later developments is also discussed, along with key themes such as the representation of gender, class, and nationality. The final chapter explores how this literary form became a force for social and ideological change by the end of the period. Written by a highly experienced scholar of English literature, this engaging textbook guides readers through the intricacies of a transformational period for the novel.


Words, Books, Images, and the Long Eighteenth Century

Words, Books, Images, and the Long Eighteenth Century

Author: Antoinina Bevan Zlatar

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2021-12-15

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 9027258449

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The essays collected in this volume engage in a conversation among lexicography, the culture of the book, and the canonization and commemoration of English literary figures and their works in the long eighteenth century. The source of inspiration for each piece is Allen Reddick’s scholarship on Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the great English lexicographer whose Dictionary (1755) included thousands upon thousands of illustrative quotations from the “best” authors, and, more recently, on Thomas Hollis (1720-1774), the much less well-known bibliophile who sent gifts of books by a pantheon of Whig authors to individuals and libraries in Britain, Protestant bastions in continental Europe, and America. Between the covers of Words, Books, Images readers will encounter canonical English authors of prose and poetry—Bacon, Milton, Defoe, Dryden, Pope, Richardson, Swift, Byron, Mary Shelley, and Edward Lear. But they will also become acquainted with the agents of their canonization and commemoration—the printers and publishers of Grub Street, the biographer John Aubrey, the lexicographer and biographer Johnson, the bibliophile Hollis, and the portrait painter Reynolds. No less crucially, they will meet fellow readers of then and now—women and men who peruse, poach, snip, and savour a book’s every word and image.


A Companion to the Eighteenth-Century English Novel and Culture

A Companion to the Eighteenth-Century English Novel and Culture

Author: Paula R. Backscheider

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2009-10-19

Total Pages: 576

ISBN-13: 1405192453

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A Companion to the Eighteenth-century Novel furnishes readers with a sophisticated vision of the eighteenth-century novel in its political, aesthetic, and moral contexts. An up-to-date resource for the study of the eighteenth-century novel Furnishes readers with a sophisticated vision of the eighteenth-century novel in its political, aesthetic, and moral context Foregrounds those topics of most historical and political relevance to the twenty-first century Explores formative influences on the eighteenth-century novel, its engagement with the major issues and philosophies of the period, and its lasting legacy Covers both traditional themes, such as narrative authority and print culture, and cutting-edge topics, such as globalization, nationhood, technology, and science Considers both canonical and non-canonical literature