Literature, commerce, and the spectacle of modernity, 1750-1800 / Paul Keen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Keen, Paul, 1963- author.

Series:

Cambridge studies in Romanticism ; 92.

Cambridge studies in Romanticism ; 92

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

English literature.

Literature and society--England--History--18th century.

Literature and society.

Commerce in literature.

Materialism in literature.

Modernism (Literature)--England.

Modernism (Literature).

National characteristics, British, in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 250 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Other Title:

Literature, Commerce, & the Spectacle of Modernity, 1750-1800

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Paul Keen explores how a consumer revolution which reached its peak in the second half of the eighteenth century shaped debates about the role of literature in a polite modern nation, and tells the story of the resourcefulness with which many writers responded to these pressures. From dream reveries which mocked their own entrepreneurial commitments, such as Oliver Goldsmith's account of selling his work at a 'Fashion Fair' on the frozen Thames, to the Microcosm's mock plan to establish 'a licensed warehouse for wit', writers insistently tied their literary achievements to a sophisticated understanding of the uncertain complexities of a modern transactional society. This book combines a new understanding of late eighteenth-century literature with the materialist and sociological imperatives of book history and theoretically inflected approaches to cultural history.

Contents:

The ocean of ink: a long introduction

Balloonomania: the pursuit of knowledge and the culture of the spectacle

Bibliomania: the rage for books and the spectacle of culture

Foolish knowledge: the little world of microcosmopolitan literature

Uncommon animals: literary professionalism in the age of authors

The learned pig: enlightening the reading public

Afterword: a swinish multitude: the tyranny of fashion in the 1790s.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-107-23049-7

1-139-23456-0

1-280-48573-6

1-139-23309-2

9786613580719

1-139-23087-5

1-139-22941-9

1-139-06127-5

1-139-23232-0

1-139-23386-6

OCLC:

780425847