Historical literatures : writing about the past in England, 1660-1740 /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Gallagher, Noelle.
Imprint:	Manchester ; New York : Manchester University Press ; New York : Distributed in the U.S. exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
Description:	xx, 252 p. : ill. ; 23 cm
Language:	English
Subject:	English prose literature -- 17th century -- History and criticism. English prose literature -- 18th century -- History and criticism. Literature and history -- Great Britain -- History -- 17th century. Literature and history -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century. Historiography -- Great Britain -- History -- 17th century. Historiography -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century. English prose literature. Historiography. Literature and history. Great Britain. Criticism, interpretation, etc. History.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/9048159

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ISBN:	9780719087622 0719087627
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:	Historical literatures' recovers a rich, vibrant and complex tradition of Restoration and early-eighteenth century English historical writing. Highlighting the wide variety of historical works being printed and read in England between the years of 1660 and 1740, it demonstrates that many of the genres that we now view primarily as literary-verse satire and panegyric, memoir, scandal and chronicle-were also being used to represent historical phenomena. In surveying some of this period's 'historical literatures', it argues that many satirists, secret historians and memoirists made their choice of historical subject matter a topic of explicit commentary, presenting themselves as historians or inscribing their works in an English historical tradition. By responding to other varieties of history in this self-conscious way, writers like Andrew Marvell, John Dryden, Delarivier Manley, Daniel Defoe and John Evelyn were able to pioneer influential new techniques for representing their nation's past.

Table of Contents:

List of illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction: English historiography at its 'lowest ebb'
I. Memoir
Memoirs and the history of the individual
1. Apostrophe: Colley Cibber's Apology and the development of social history
2. Analogy: John Evelyn's Kalendarium and the public diary tradition
II. Secret history
Secret histories as histories
3. Narrative voices: Daniel Defoe's Secret History of the White-Staff in dialogue
4. Narrative personae: Delarivier Manley's Secret Memoirs and Manners and the modern chronicle
III. Satire and panegyric
Satire and panegyric as forms of historical writing
5. Metonymy: Edmund Waller, Andrew Marvell, and the advice-to-a-painter poem
6. Metaphor: John Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel and historical allegory
IV. History reconsidered
Rethinking history at its 'lowest ebb'
7. Secret history and Roger North's 'historical controversy'
8. History with a 'design: satire and John Oldmixon's History of England During the Reigns of the Royal House of Stuart
Notes
Bibliography
Index

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