Common sense in early 18th-century British literature and culture : ethics, aesthetics, and politics, 1680-1750 / Christoph Henke.

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Henke, Christoph, author.

Series:

Buchreihe der Anglia ; Volume 46.

Buchreihe der Anglia = Anglia Book Series, 0340-5435 ; Volume 46

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Literature and society--Great Britain--History--18th century.

Literature and society.

Common sense in literature.

English literature--18th century--History and criticism.

English literature.

Common sense--Social aspects--Great Britain.

Common sense.

Great Britain--Intellectual life--18th century.

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (326 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berlin, [Germany] ; Boston, [Massachusetts] : De Gruyter, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

While the popular talk of English common sense in the eighteenth century might seem a by-product of familiar Enlightenment discourses of rationalism and empiricism, this book argues that terms such as 'common sense' or 'good sense' are not simply synonyms of applied reason. On the contrary, the discourse of common sense is shaped by a defensive impulse against the totalizing intellectual regimes of the Enlightenment and the cultural climate of change they promote, in order to contain the unbounded discursive proliferation of modern learning. Hence, common sense discourse has a vital regulatory function in cultural negotiations of political and intellectual change in eighteenth-century Britain against the backdrop of patriotic national self-concepts. This study discusses early eighteenth-century common sense in four broad complexes, as to its discursive functions that are ethical (which at that time implies aesthetic as well), transgressive (as a corrective), political (in patriotic constructs of the nation), and repressive (of otherness). The selection of texts in this study strikes a balance between dominant literary culture - Swift, Pope, Defoe, Fielding, Johnson - and the periphery, such as pamphlets and magazine essays, satiric poems and patriotic songs.

Contents:

Front matter

Preface

Contents

List of Illustrations

1. The Discourse of Common Sense

2. The Ethics of Common Sense

3. The Transgressions of Common Sense

4. The Politics of Common Sense

5. The Other of Common Sense

6. The Afterlife of Common Sense

Bibliography

Author and Title Index

Subject Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Habil. Universität Augsburg 2012.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9783110394979

3110394979

OCLC:

893457178