literary atmosphere in British fiction, 1660-1794 /
First Statement of Responsibility
Jayne Elizabeth Lewis.
.PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC
Place of Publication, Distribution, etc.
Chicago :
Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.
The University of Chicago Press,
Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.
2012.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item
x, 294 pages :
Other Physical Details
illustrations ;
Dimensions
24 cm
INTERNAL BIBLIOGRAPHIES/INDEXES NOTE
Text of Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 251-288) and index.
CONTENTS NOTE
Text of Note
Rounds of air -- "Other air": Boyle's spring, Milton's fall, and the making of literary atmosphere -- "Discontented air"; or, the Rape of the lock -- Novel atmographies: eighteenth-century weather writing and the atmospheres of Robinson Crusoe -- Spectral currencies and the air of reality in a Journal of the plague year -- The dissipation of Tom Jones -- Glanvill's ghost, cold sociability, and "the cure of Arabella's mind" -- In factitious airs: Radcliffe's Priestley -- Priestley's Radcliffe and the experimental gothic.
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SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
In Air's Appearance, Jayne Elizabeth Lewis enlists her readers in pursuit of the elusive concept of atmosphere in literary works. She shows how diverse conceptions of air in the eighteenth century converged in British fiction, producing the modern literary sense of atmosphere and moving novelists to explore the threshold between material and immaterial worlds. Air's Appearance links the emergence of literary atmosphere to changing ideas about air and the earth's atmosphere in natural philosophy, as well as to the era's theories of the supernatural and fascination with social manners--or, as they are now known, "airs." Lewis thus offers a striking new interpretation of several standard features of the Enlightenment--the scientific revolution, the decline of magic, character-based sociability, and the rise of the novel--that considers them in terms of the romance of air that permeates and connects them. As it explores key episodes in the history of natural philosophy and in major literary works like Paradise Lost, "The Rape of the Lock," Robinson Crusoe, and The Mysteries of Udolpho, this book promises to change the atmosphere of eighteenth-century studies and the history of the novel.--Book jacket.
TOPICAL NAME USED AS SUBJECT
English fiction-- 17th century-- History and criticism.
English fiction-- 18th century-- History and criticism.