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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... obviously a great many areas of uncertainty and trepidation in this endeavour and lest you feel that you have fallen among thieves and swindlers already, I will set out before you at the very beginning the terms of the arrangement. My ...
... obvious in the urbane setting of the developing periodicals like the Tatler and Spectator and in the declared allegiances of such various relevant texts as The London Bawd, The London Jilt, The London Spy, The London Merchant and The ...
... obvious cases like larcenies. But even here there are areas of uncertainty, like the killing of enemy troops in wartime or the pilfering of insignificant items from the work-place. And after that, things become even less certain. Since ...
... obviously partisan – 'I think it is an undeniable position, that a competent knowledge of that society, in which we live, is the proper accomplishment of every gentleman and scholar; an highly useful, I had almost said essential part of ...
... obviously perpetrated cruelties and defended existing inequalities, it might still be sanctioned as a necessary component in the 'whole scheme' of civilisation. According to many contemporary commentators, the law in practice might ...
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 |