Jenny Mander
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- June 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780199574803
- eISBN:
- 9780191869747
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199574803.003.0032
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature, Prose (inc. letters, diaries)
This chapter examines foreign novels, which greatly overshadowed the English novel. The prevalence of imitations and translations of foreign novels had been a matter of significant critical concern ...
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This chapter examines foreign novels, which greatly overshadowed the English novel. The prevalence of imitations and translations of foreign novels had been a matter of significant critical concern throughout the first half of the eighteenth century and contemptuously identified by many a censorious reviewer as a corrupting influence on both the morals and letters of the nation. By the middle of the century, however, there was a strong sense that the English novel had come of age; and as British novelists progressively consolidated their position both at home and abroad, readers became decreasingly dependent on foreign fiction. Nonetheless, non-native fiction remained a convenient focus for multiple anxieties relating to the genre of the novel and its commercialization. For while the overall picture for 1750–1820 as regards imported imaginative literature was one of general decline, many foreign novelists continued to compete successfully for the attention of the British public.Less
This chapter examines foreign novels, which greatly overshadowed the English novel. The prevalence of imitations and translations of foreign novels had been a matter of significant critical concern throughout the first half of the eighteenth century and contemptuously identified by many a censorious reviewer as a corrupting influence on both the morals and letters of the nation. By the middle of the century, however, there was a strong sense that the English novel had come of age; and as British novelists progressively consolidated their position both at home and abroad, readers became decreasingly dependent on foreign fiction. Nonetheless, non-native fiction remained a convenient focus for multiple anxieties relating to the genre of the novel and its commercialization. For while the overall picture for 1750–1820 as regards imported imaginative literature was one of general decline, many foreign novelists continued to compete successfully for the attention of the British public.
Liam Connell
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- June 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198749394
- eISBN:
- 9780191869754
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198749394.003.0023
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature, Prose (inc. letters, diaries)
This chapter offers a limited survey of the ways that British regional novelists have engaged in the processes of place-making. It examines novels from England, Scotland, and Wales. In doing so, the ...
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This chapter offers a limited survey of the ways that British regional novelists have engaged in the processes of place-making. It examines novels from England, Scotland, and Wales. In doing so, the chapter gives particular focus to the way that late twentieth-century and contemporary novelists have adapted the techniques of earlier writers in order to attend to the complex intertwining of the local and the global. To that end the chapter shows that while the contemporary regional novel continues to depict the distinguishing features of an ‘area and its people’ it does so by attending to the relations between this local distinctiveness and the wider world. By focusing on the way that these novels function as a form of place-making, this chapter also shows how such novels manage to articulate the region as a negotiation between local distinctiveness and universal homogeneity.Less
This chapter offers a limited survey of the ways that British regional novelists have engaged in the processes of place-making. It examines novels from England, Scotland, and Wales. In doing so, the chapter gives particular focus to the way that late twentieth-century and contemporary novelists have adapted the techniques of earlier writers in order to attend to the complex intertwining of the local and the global. To that end the chapter shows that while the contemporary regional novel continues to depict the distinguishing features of an ‘area and its people’ it does so by attending to the relations between this local distinctiveness and the wider world. By focusing on the way that these novels function as a form of place-making, this chapter also shows how such novels manage to articulate the region as a negotiation between local distinctiveness and universal homogeneity.
