The secret history of domesticity : public, private, and the division of knowledge / Michael McKeon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McKeon, Michael, 1943-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Knowledge, Sociology of.

Material culture.

Privacy.

Conduct of life.

Social history.

Civilization, Modern.

Privacy--England--History.

Privacy in literature.

England--Social life and customs.

England.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (918 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

A capacious and synthetic historical investigation, The Secret History of Domesticity exemplifies how the methods of literary interpretation and historical analysis can inform and enrich one another.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

The Division of Knowledge

The Public and the Private

Domesticity

Form and Spatial Representability

Questions of Method

Part One: The Age of Separations

Chapter 1. The Devolution of Absolutism

State and Civil Society

From Tacit to Explicit

Polis and Oikos

The State and the Family

Absolute Private Property

Interest and the Public Interest

Civic Humanism or Capitalist Ideology?

From the Marketplace to the Market

The Protestant Separation

Conscientious Privacy and the Closet of Devotion

What Is the Public Sphere?

Chapter 2. Publishing the Private

The Plasticity of Print

Scribal Publication

Print, Property, and the Public Interest

Print Legislation and Copyright

Knowledge and Secrecy

Public Opinion

What Was the Public Sphere?

Publicness through Virtuality

Publication and Personality

Anonymity and Responsibility

Libel versus Satire

Characters, Authors, Readers

Particulars and Generals

Actual and Concrete Particularity

Chapter 3. From State as Family to Family as State

State as Family

Family as State

Coming Together

Being Together

Putting Asunder

Tory Feminism and the Devolution of Absolutism

Privacy and Pastoral

Chapter 4. Outside and Inside Work

The Domestic Economy and Cottage Industry

The Economic Basis of Separate Spheres

Housewife as Governor

The Whore's Labor

The Whores Rhetorick

Chapter 5. Subdividing Inside Spaces

Separating Out "Science"

The Royal Household

Cabinet and Closet

Secrets and the Secretary

Noble and Gentle Households

The Curtain Lecture

Households of the Middling Sort

Where the Poor Should Live

Chapter 6. Sex and Book Sex

Sex

Aristotle's Master-piece

Onania

Book Sex.

Protopornography: Sex and Religion

Protopornography: Sex and Politics

The Law of Obscene Libel

Part Two: Domestication as Form

Chapter 7. Motives for Domestication

The Productivity of the Division of Knowledge

Domestication as Hermeneutics

Domestication as Pedagogy

Disembedding Epistemology from Social Status

Scientific Disinterestedness

Civic Disinterestedness

Aesthetic Disinterestedness

Chapter 8. Mixed Genres

Tragicomedy

Romance

Mock Epic

Pastoral

Christ in the House of Martha and Mary

Chapter 9. Figures of Domestication

Narrative Concentration

Narrative Concretization

Part Three: Secret Histories

Chapter 10. The Narration of Public Crisis

What Is a Secret History?

Sidney and Barclay

Opening the King's Cabinet

Opening the Queen's Closet

Scudéry

Women and Romance

The King Out of Power

The King In Power

The Secret of the Black Box

The Secret of The Holy War

Chapter 11. Behn's Love-Letters

Love versus War?

Love versus Friendship

Fathers versus Children

Effeminacy and the Public Wife

Gender without Sex

From Epistolary to Third Person

From Female Duplicity to Female Interiority

Love-Letters and Pornography

Chapter 12. Toward the Narration of Private Life

The Secret of the Warming Pan

The Private Lives of William, Mary, and Anne

The Privatization of the Secret History

The Strange Case of Beau Wilson

Chapter 13. Secret History as Autobiography

Preface on Congreve

Manley's New Atalantis

Manley's Rivella

Postscript on Pope

Chapter 14. Secret History as Novel

Defoe and Swift

Jane Barker and Mary Hearne

Haywood's Secret Histories

Richardson's Pamela

Chapter 15. Variations on the Domestic Novel

Fanny Hill

Tristram Shandy

Humphry Clinker

Pride and Prejudice

Notes

Index

A.

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

Y

Z.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 719-839) and index.

ISBN:

0-8018-9645-2

OCLC:

647865489