Sign-In
Cart
Common Ground: Eighteenth-Century English Satiric Fiction and the Poor
Hardcover
ISBN13: 9780804729086
Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr
Published: Jul 1 1997
Pages: 248
Weight: 1.05
Height: 0.95 Width: 5.84 Depth: 8.88
Language: English
Work on both the satire and the fiction of the English eighteenth century has tended to focus on the transition from a patrician culture to a culture dominated by the logic of the market. This book shifts the focus from the struggle between aristocratic and bourgeois values to another set of important, yet usually unremarked, class relations: those between the gentle classes and the poor.
The author reads four eighteenth-century satiric novels--Henry Fielding's Joseph Andrews, Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey, Tobias Smollett's Humphrey Clinker, and Frances Burney's Cecilia--from below, exploring the ways in which the gentle authors' experiences of the poor shape the novels both thematically and formally. The author argues that in these novels the mental structures of gentlemen and gentlewomen characters are formed through acts of imitation of and identification with the poor.
The four novels all concern, in varying degrees of explicitness, the ways the poor were despised and denied politically and socially: the curtailing of popular festivity, the shift from a paternalist to a contractual model of service, the social dislocations caused by enclosure, and the commodification of labor. In the novels' representations of gentle consciousness, the author suggests, the gentry mimic and identify with the socially marginal, their imaginary repertoires formed out of such identification.
Claiming that affect is formed in the interrelation of social groups as they react to economic change, this book centers on the conjunction of economic change, novelistic technique, and the constitution of affects. Further, it suggests that satire--which, during this period, was falling into disrepute under the pressure of contemporary attempts to redefine comedy--may be regarded as a generic form that arrests affect, refusing to idealize or cover over the devastating social effects of economic progress, but at the same time unable to see and say what has been lost. The satiric element in these novels is the moment where anxiety about the gentry's relation to the poor--and hence the gentry's very self-definition--is most richly performed and ritualized.
Also in
Literary Criticism
Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times
Sachs, Aaron
Hardcover
Queer Faith: Reading Promiscuity and Race in the Secular Love Tradition
Sanchez, Melissa E.
Paperback
Ancient Rome at the Cinema: Story and Spectacle in Hollywood and Rome
Theodorakopoulos, Elena
Paperback
How to Be a Cat: (Cat Books for Kids, Cat Gifts for Kids, Cat Picture Book)
Lazar, Ralph
Swerling, Lisa
Hardcover
Hidden Hemingway: Inside the Ernest Hemingway Archives of Oak Park
Cirino, Mark
Elder
Vetch, Aaron
Hardcover
Script Analysis for Theatre: Tools for Interpretation, Collaboration and Production
Knopf, Robert
Paperback
Mountain Farmers: Moral Economies of Land & Agricultural Development in Arusha & Meru
Spear, Thomas
Paperback
Dante's Vita Nuova, New Edition: A Translation and an Essay
Alighieri, Dante
Pitavy, Francois
Paperback
How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines (Large Print Edition)
Foster, Thomas C.
Paperback
Much ADO about Nothing: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Shakespeare, William
Sparknotes
Paperback
Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise
Rundell, Katherine
Hardcover
Twelfth Night: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Sparknotes
Shakespeare, William
Paperback
Penelope's Bones: A New History of Homer's World Through the Women Written Out of It
Hauser, Emily
Paperback
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
Saunders, George
Paperback
Romeo and Juliet: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Shakespeare, William
Sparknotes
Paperback
Darkness Becomes Bright: On the Brief Life and Immortal Art of Edgar Allan Poe
Ogden, Emily
Hardcover
Mythology (75th Anniversary Illustrated Edition): Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes
Hamilton, Edith
Hardcover
The Language of the Night: Essays on Writing, Science Fiction, and Fantasy
Le Guin, Ursula K.
Paperback
But Have You Read the Book? Romance Edition: 40 Love Stories That Inspired Our Favorite Films
Lopez, Kristen
Hardcover
Cicero's Tongue: The Life of Rome's Greatest Orator and the End of the Republic
Edwards, Catharine
Hardcover
Read Your Color: Discover Your Reading Type and Build a Life-Changing Love of Books
Reese, Steven J.
Paperback
As You Like It: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Sparknotes
Shakespeare, William
Paperback
The Art and Craft of Stephen King: The Story Behind Every Novel, Novella, and Short Story
Astic, Guy
LaFond, Frank
Hardcover
Mandarin Chinese Characters Made Easy: An Easy Step-by-Step Approach to Learn Chinese Characters (HSK Level 1)
Lingo Mastery
Paperback
Jane Austen's Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend
Romney, Rebecca
Paperback
The Lightning-Bug and the Lightning: Debunking the Myths of Mark Twain, in His Own Words
Dawidziak, Mark
Hardcover
Mean Dads for a Better America: The Generous Rewards of an Old-Fashioned Childhood
Shillue, Tom
Paperback
Julius Caesar: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Shakespeare, William
Sparknotes
Paperback
Women of the Fairy Tale Resistance: The Forgotten Founding Mothers of the Fairy Tale and the Stories That They Spun
Harrington, Jane
Hardcover
A Midsummer Night's Dream: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Sparknotes
Shakespeare, William
Paperback
The Odyssey: An Illustrated Guide: A Character-By-Character Guide to the Story of Odysseus
Metzger, Doug
Hardcover
The Jane Austen Insult Guide for Well-Bred Women: Serving Tea with a Side of Scorn
Reed, Emily
Hardcover
Three by Annie Dillard: The Writing Life, an American Childhood, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Dillard, Annie
Paperback
The New Lifetime Reading Plan: The Classical Guide to World Literature, Revised and Expanded
Fadiman, Clifton
Major, John S.
Paperback
The Greek Tragedies: Seventeen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides
Aeschylus
Sophocles
Euripides
Paperback