Prose of Things – Transformations of Description in the Eighteenth Century
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1700s
18th century
A01=Cynthia Sundber Wall
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analysis
analytical
ann radcliffe
aphra behn
Author_Cynthia Sundber Wall
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Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=DSB
Category=DSBD
close reading
college
consumer
COP=United States
criticism
critique
cultural
culture
daniel defoe
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description
domestic
educational
english major
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eq_biography-true-stories
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eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
figurative language
higher ed
image
john bunyan
landscape
Language_English
literary
literature
natural
nature
novel
PA=Available
perception
philosophical
Price_€20 to €50
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science
setting
sir walter scott
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textbook
theoretical
theory
transformation
university
victorian
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Product details
- ISBN 9780226215273
- Weight: 498g
- Dimensions: 152 x 227mm
- Publication Date: 07 Oct 2014
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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Virginia Woolf once commented that the central image in Robinson Crusoe is an object - a large earthenware pot. Woolf and other critics pointed out that early modern prose is full of things but bare of setting and description. Explaining how the empty, unvisualized spaces of such writings were transformed into the elaborate landscapes and richly upholstered interiors of the Victorian novel, Cynthia Sundberg Wall argues that the shift involved not just literary representation but an evolution in cultural perception. In The Prose of Things, Wall analyzes literary works in the contexts of natural science, consumer culture, and philosophical change to show how and why the perception and representation of space in the eighteenth-century novel and other prose narratives became so textually visible. Wall examines maps, scientific publications, country house guides, and auction catalogs to highlight the thickening descriptions of domestic interiors.
Considering the prose works of John Bunyan, Samuel Pepys, Aphra Behn, Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, David Hume, Ann Radcliffe, and Sir Walter Scott, The Prose of Things is the first full account of the historic shift in the art of describing.
Cynthia Sundberg Wall is professor of English at the University of Virginia.
