Literature and Crime in Augustan EnglandRoutledge, 2020 M01 8 - 260 pages Eighteenth-century England saw an explosion of writings about deviance. In literature, in the law, and in the press, writers returned again and again to the question of crime and criminals. While the extension of the legal system formalised the power of the state to categorise and punish ‘deviance’, writers repeatedly confronted the problematic nature of legal authority and the unstable idea of ‘the criminal’. Some of this commentary was supportive, some was subversive and resistant, uncovering the complexity of issues the law sought to ignore. Originally published in 1991, Ian Bell’s masterly investigation of the diverse representations of crime and legality in the Augustan period ranges widely across the contemporary press, involving court reports, philosophical writings, periodicals, biographies, pornography and polemics. Re-assessing the canonical texts of eighteenth-century ‘Literature’, Bell situates the work of Defoe, Hogarth, Gay, Swift, Pope, Richardson and Fielding in its social and political context. |
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... important to address an even more basic difficulty: what is crime? Anyone presently asked to give a list of crimes is likely to mention uncontentiously illegal violent acts like murder or rape and other obvious cases like larcenies. But ...
... importance, the civil law might, on acquaintance, serve certain useful practical purposes in the day-to-day life and business of his listeners – 'the understanding of a few leading principles, relating to estates and conveyancing, may ...
... represented class interests in a mediated and disguised form, shrouded in the majesty of ceremony and the performance of ritual, those class interests were still its central generative force. It is important to recognise that this version.
Ian A. Bell. generative force. It is important to recognise that this version of the ideological function of criminal legislation had a place in the widespread discussion of the law in the eighteenth century itself. There was, as we ...
... importance of law in eighteenthcentury England ensured that it remained at the centre of public discussion throughout the period. Contemporary commentaries were multi-vocal, and it is hard to provide a consistent or even a fully ...
Contents
Representing the criminal | |
The harlots progress | |
Satires rough music | |
Fielding and the discipline of fiction | |
Buttock and File | |
Other editions - View all
Literature and Crime in Augustan England Ian a Bell,Taylor & Francis Group No preview available - 2022 |