Godwin and the Book : : Imagining Media, 1783-1836 / / J. Louise McCray.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2022 English
• VerfasserIn: McCray, J. Louise,
• Place / Publishing House: Edinburgh : : Edinburgh University Press, , [2022]; ©2021
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: Edinburgh Critical Studies in Romanticism : ECSR
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (216 p.)

Examines the place of media technology in the literary and intellectual history of Romantic-era BritainExplores the literary figuration of media technology and its useOffers a fresh reading of Godwin’s corpus, which involves an unusual claim about its fundamental consistency across time and generic boundariesExamines major controversies of the period, including: the physiology of the mind; the ethics of novel-reading; practical reading advice; the nature of truth; the nature of afterlifeDraws attention to the enormous impact of protestant dissent on the literature and philosophy of the Romantic periodGodwin and the Book explores a network of controversies concerning the relationship of media form to social futurity in Romantic-period Britain through the writing of the notorious philosopher-novelist William Godwin (1756–1836). It offers a fresh reading of Godwin’s fifty-year corpus, using evidence from his fiction, philosophy and essays to argue that, throughout his career, he figured books and reading in particular ways in order to defend a set of inherited beliefs about intellectual perfectibility. In the process, it highlights many wider debates that marked out the culture of this period – including disagreements over the physiology of the mind, the ethics of novel-reading, and the social consequences of death – and considers how these debates were intertwined with the formal development of British prose in the period.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- 1. The Matter of the Reader: Materialism and Private Judgement -- 2. The Ethics of Novel-Reading: Fiction and Moral Law -- 3. The Discipline of Reading: ‘Enquiry’ and Religious Dissent -- 4. Truth and Social Media: Books and Intellectual Regulation -- 5. Books, Bodies and Monuments: Print and Perfectibility -- Bibliography -- Index