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. |
From inside the book
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... nature of the information that is received about the behaviour in question.1 This book is a study of information about deviance, and misinformation, and disinformation. It concentrates upon the diverse representations of crime and ...
... nature of the prosecution of certain offences, and the rapid changes in legislation during the Augustan period. These will arise in the body of the argument, and be dealt with where appropriate. However, as a starting point, the broad ...
... Nature (1739), isolated the institutional complexity of the law, and sought to make sense of it: When I relieve persons in distress, my natural humanity is my motive; and so far as my succour extends, so far have I promoted the ...
... nature of humanity, the principles of civic organisation, and the possibilities of a rational, just society. In this chorus of commentary, cries for reform vie with cries for consolidation, pleas for mercy alternate with demands for ...
... Natural Body, seldom fail going on to their Crisis, especially when nourished and encouraged by Faults in the Constitution. In fact, I make no Doubt, but that the Streets of this Town, and the Roads leading to it, will shortly be ...
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 |