Skip to content
Home/ Acts of Modernity: The Historical Novel and Effective Communication, 1814�1901
Acts of Modernity: The Historical Novel and Effective Communication, 1814�1901

Acts of Modernity: The Historical Novel and Effective Communication, 1814�1901

by Buchanan, David
No customer reviews yet ISBN 9780367880088

In Acts of Modernity, David Buchanan reads nineteenth-century historical novels from Scotland, America, France, and Canada as instances of modern discourse reflective of community concerns and methods that were transatlantic in scope. Following on revolutionary events at home and abroad, the unique combination of history and romance initiated by Walter Scott's Waverley (1814) furthered interest in the transition to and depiction of the nation-state. Established and lesser-known novelists reinterpreted the genre to describe the impact of modernization and to propose coping mechanisms, according to interests and circumstances. Besides analysis of the chronotopic representation of modernity within and between national contexts, Buchanan considers how remediation enabled diverse communities to encounter popular historical novels in upmarket and downmarket forms over the course of the century. He pays attention to the way communication practices are embedded within and constitutive of the social lives of readers, and more specifically, to how cultural producers adapted the historical novel to dynamic communication situations. In these ways, Acts of Modernity investigates how the historical novel was repeatedly reinvented to effectively communicate the consequences of modernity as problem-solutions of relevance to people on both sides of the Atlantic.

About the author

Product details

Pub dateDec 12, 2019
ISBN-100367880083
ISBN-139780367880088
LanguageEnglish
Last updated 2026-07-13 15:53
$67.86
In stock — ships in 24 hours with free tracking
Delivery by Monday, September 14, 2026
Qty
Sign in to Add to Saved list
Free delivery on orders over $35.
15-day returns. Any reason.
Secure checkout. We never store card details.

Readers who bought this also bought

More from Modern - 19th Century
See all
Oxford Handbook of Decadence
The meaning of <em>decadence</em> varies with context, depending on what (or who) is understood to have declined, decayed, or degenerated. These negative meanings are familiar from history (the decline and fall of Rome), sociology (the decay of communities), morality (the degeneration of values), and more, including such popular conceptions of decadence as excess and corruption. At the same time, all of this negative decadence has found positive cultural expression, principally in literature, through the work of such celebrated nineteenth-century decadents as Charles Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde, and many others. This volume takes the study of decadence beyond these canonical literary works to explore the phenomenon in broader historical, geographical, and cultural contexts. <p/>In thirty-five chapters by esteemed scholars from a range of disciplines, the <em>Oxford Handbook of Decadence</em> addresses different critical periods, such as classical antiquity, various ages of empire, the interwar era in the twentieth century, and contemporary times, as well as key places--France, Belgium, Britain, Italy, Germany, the Nordic nations, Russia and Ukraine, the Ottoman Empire, and Japan--and such genres as the novel, the short story, drama, the essay, prose poetry, and film. The volume also considers decadence more broadly as a culture not limited to literature by tracing its manifestations in such material forms as book design, fashion, interior decoration, and architecture, as well as through the experiential register of the senses: decadent vision, sound, smell, taste, and touch are all reflected, respectively, in painting, music, perfume, cuisine, and feeling. Finally, the chapters explore the theoretical resonance of decadence in such fields as theology, science, ecology, politics, psychoanalysis, and philosophy. By illuminating the various ways decadence can be construed, the Handbook offers an in-depth and original exploration into the paradox of decadence: a culture that draws its creative energy from the idea of decline.
$247.19
Moral Economies of American Authorship: Reputation, Scandal, and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Mar
Ryan, Susan M
$47.48
Common Precedents: The Presentness of the Past in Victorian Law and Fiction
Ben-Yishai, Ayelet
$44.18
Lecturing the Atlantic: Speech, Print, and an Anglo-American Commons 1830-1870
Wright, Tom F
$142.95
Untimely Democracy: The Politics of Progress After Slavery
Laski, Gregory
$142.95
Nervous Stage: Nineteenth-Century Neuroscience and the Birth of Modern Theatre (UK) (UK)
Smith, Matthew Wilson
$82.60