Distraction: problems of attention in eighteenth-century literature

Early novel reading typically conjures images of rapt readers in quiet rooms, but commentators at the time described reading as a fraught activity, one occurring amidst a distracting cacophony that included sloshing chamber pots and wailing street vendors. Auditory distractions were compounded by li...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
1. Verfasser: Phillips, Natalie M. (VerfasserIn)
Format: Buch
Sprache:English
Veröffentlicht: Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 2016
Schlagworte:
Zusammenfassung:Early novel reading typically conjures images of rapt readers in quiet rooms, but commentators at the time described reading as a fraught activity, one occurring amidst a distracting cacophony that included sloshing chamber pots and wailing street vendors. Auditory distractions were compounded by literary ones as falling paper costs led to an explosion of print material, forcing prose fiction to compete with a dizzying array of essays, poems, sermons, and histories. In Distraction, Natalie M. Phillips argues that prominent Enlightenment authors-from Jane Austen and William Godwin to Eliza Haywood and Samuel Johnson-were deeply engaged with debates about the wandering mind, even if they were not equally concerned about the problem of distractibility. Phillips explains that some novelists in the 1700s-viewing distraction as a dangerous wandering from singular attention that could lead to sin or even madness-attempted to reform diverted readers
Beschreibung:Includes bibliographical references and index
Beschreibung:x, 288 Seiten Illustrationen, Diagramme 24 cm
ISBN:1421420120
1421420139
9781421420127

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