Paula McDowell
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198183952
- eISBN:
- 9780191674143
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198183952.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature, 18th-century Literature
Offering a new synthetic model for the study of the literary marketplace, this book has uncovered a legacy of female religio-political activity that existed long before the better-known political ...
More
Offering a new synthetic model for the study of the literary marketplace, this book has uncovered a legacy of female religio-political activity that existed long before the better-known political activity of women in the 1790s. For the women printworkers and propagandists studied here, access to the press was a vehicle of significant if limited power. Their involvement in political culture, while little known today, was considered dangerous enough in their own time to necessitate their arrest. To understand the lives of persons across a broad class and ideological spectrum, this book has argued, we need to take greater risks to develop new methodologies. We get a different view of the chief concerns and voices of the age when we consider all aspects of textual producation and dissemination and include forms like broadsides, pamphlets, and newspapers than when we concentrate exclusively on authorship and on relatively decorous forms like the novel.Less
Offering a new synthetic model for the study of the literary marketplace, this book has uncovered a legacy of female religio-political activity that existed long before the better-known political activity of women in the 1790s. For the women printworkers and propagandists studied here, access to the press was a vehicle of significant if limited power. Their involvement in political culture, while little known today, was considered dangerous enough in their own time to necessitate their arrest. To understand the lives of persons across a broad class and ideological spectrum, this book has argued, we need to take greater risks to develop new methodologies. We get a different view of the chief concerns and voices of the age when we consider all aspects of textual producation and dissemination and include forms like broadsides, pamphlets, and newspapers than when we concentrate exclusively on authorship and on relatively decorous forms like the novel.
