The Cambridge Introduction to the Eighteenth-Century Novel

The Cambridge Introduction to the Eighteenth-Century Novel
Author: April London
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2012-04-05
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1107377595

In the eighteenth century, the novel became established as a popular literary form all over Europe. Britain proved an especially fertile ground, with Defoe, Fielding, Richardson and Burney as early exponents of the novel form. The Cambridge Introduction to the Eighteenth-Century Novel considers the development of the genre in its formative period in Britain. Rather than present its history as a linear progression, April London gives an original new structure to the field, organizing it through three broad thematic clusters – identity, community and history. Within each of these themes, she explores the central tensions of eighteenth-century fiction: between secrecy and communicativeness, independence and compliance, solitude and family, cosmopolitanism and nation-building. The reader will gain a thorough understanding of both prominent and lesser-known novels and novelists, key social and literary contexts, the tremendous formal variety of the early novel and its growth from a marginal to a culturally central genre.

The Cambridge Introduction to Eighteenth-Century Poetry

The Cambridge Introduction to Eighteenth-Century Poetry
Author: John Sitter
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2011-10-06
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1139502468

For readers daunted by the formal structures and rhetorical sophistication of eighteenth-century English poetry, this introduction by John Sitter brings the techniques and the major poets of the period 1700–1785 triumphantly to life. Sitter begins by offering a guide to poetic forms ranging from heroic couplets to blank verse, then demonstrates how skilfully male and female poets of the period used them as vehicles for imaginative experience, feelings and ideas. He then provides detailed analyses of individual works by poets from Finch, Swift and Pope, to Gray, Cowper and Barbauld. An approachable introduction to English poetry and major poets of the eighteenth century, this book provides a grounding in poetic analysis useful to students and general readers of literature.

The Cambridge Companion to the Eighteenth-Century Novel

The Cambridge Companion to the Eighteenth-Century Novel
Author: John Richetti
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 380
Release: 1996-09-05
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1139825046

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.

The Cambridge Introduction to the Novel

The Cambridge Introduction to the Novel
Author: Marina MacKay
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2010-11-25
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1139493574

Beginning its life as the sensational entertainment of the eighteenth century, the novel has become the major literary genre of modern times. Drawing on hundreds of examples of famous novels from all over the world, Marina MacKay explores the essential aspects of the novel and its history: where novels came from and why we read them; how we think about their styles and techniques, their people, plots, places, and politics. Between the main chapters are longer readings of individual works, from Don Quixote to Midnight's Children. A glossary of key terms and a guide to further reading are included, making this an ideal accompaniment to introductory courses on the novel.

The Cambridge Companion to the Eighteenth-century Novel

The Cambridge Companion to the Eighteenth-century Novel
Author: John J. Richetti
Publisher:
Total Pages: 283
Release: 1996
Genre: English fiction
ISBN: 9781139815192

The contributors challenge and refine the traditional view of the 18th century novel's origins and purposes, showing that the novel is defined primarily by the new ideological and cultural functions it serves in the emerging world of print culture.

The Cambridge Introduction to Charles Dickens

The Cambridge Introduction to Charles Dickens
Author: Jon Mee
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2010-09-02
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1139788922

Charles Dickens became immensely popular early on in his career as a novelist, and his appeal continues to grow with new editions prompted by recent television and film adaptations, as well as large numbers of students studying the Victorian novel. This lively and accessible introduction to Dickens focuses on the extraordinary diversity of his writing. Jon Mee discusses Dickens's novels, journalism and public performances, the historical contexts and his influence on other writers. In the process, five major themes emerge: Dickens the entertainer; Dickens and language; Dickens and London; Dickens, gender, and domesticity; and the question of adaptation, including Dickens's adaptations of his own work. These interrelated concerns allow readers to start making their own new connections between his famous and less widely read works and to appreciate fully the sheer imaginative richness of his writing, which particularly evokes the dizzying expansion of nineteenth-century London.

The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction

The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction
Author: Martin Priestman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2003-11-06
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1107494508

The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction covers British and American crime fiction from the eighteenth century to the end of the twentieth. As well as discussing the detective fiction of writers like Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and Raymond Chandler, it considers other kinds of fiction where crime plays a substantial part, such as the thriller and spy fiction. It also includes chapters on the treatment of crime in eighteenth-century literature, French and Victorian fiction, women and black detectives, crime on film and TV, police fiction and postmodernist uses of the detective form. The collection, by an international team of established specialists, offers students invaluable reference material including a chronology and guides to further reading. The volume aims to ensure that its readers will be grounded in the history of crime fiction and its critical reception.

The Cambridge Companion to English Literature, 1740–1830

The Cambridge Companion to English Literature, 1740–1830
Author: Thomas Keymer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 542
Release: 2004-06-17
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1139826719

This 2004 volume offers an introduction to British literature that challenges the traditional divide between eighteenth-century and Romantic studies. Contributors explore the development of literary genres and modes through a period of rapid change. They show how literature was shaped by historical factors including the development of the book trade, the rise of literary criticism and the expansion of commercial society and empire. The first part of the volume focuses on broad themes including taste and aesthetics, national identity and empire, and key cultural trends such as sensibility and the gothic. The second part pays close attention to the work of individual writers including Sterne, Blake, Barbauld and Austen, and to the role of literary schools such as the Lake and Cockney schools. The wide scope of the collection, juxtaposing canonical authors with those now gaining new attention from scholars, makes it essential reading for students of eighteenth-century literature and Romanticism.

The Cambridge Introduction to Modernism

The Cambridge Introduction to Modernism
Author: Pericles Lewis
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 197
Release: 2007-05-03
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1316224309

More than a century after its beginnings, modernism still has the power to shock, alienate or challenge readers. Modernist art and literature remain thought of as complex and difficult. This introduction explains in a readable, lively style how modernism emerged, how it is defined, and how it developed in different forms and genres. Pericles Lewis offers students a survey of literature and art in England, Ireland and Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century. He also provides an overview of critical thought on modernism and its continuing influence on the arts today, reflecting the interests of current scholarship in the social and cultural contexts of modernism. The comparative perspective on Anglo-American and European modernism shows how European movements have influenced the development of English-language modernism. Illustrated with works of art and featuring suggestions for further study, this is the ideal introduction to understanding and enjoying modernist literature and art.