The Prose of Things: Transformations of Description in the Eighteenth Century

by Wall, Cynthia Sundberg

• ISBN13: 9780226871585
• ISBN10: 0226871584
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-06-15
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

Virginia Woolf once commented that the central image inRobinson Crusoeis an objecta 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 Wall argues that the shift involved not just literary representation but an evolution in cultural perception. InThe 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 Thingsis the first full account of the historic shift in the art of describing.

Author Biography

Cynthia Sundberg Wall is associate professor of English at the University of Virginia.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction	1	(6)
A History of Description, a Foundling	7	(34)
Some Definitions of Description	11	(4)
The Rhetorical History of Description	15	(26)
Traveling Spaces	41	(29)
Descriptions and Excavations: Stow to Strype	43	(10)
Traveled Spaces: Ogilby, Bunyan	53	(17)
Seeing Things	70	(26)
Subspace and Surfaces: Hooke, Boyle, Swift	71	(11)
Diaries and Descriptions: Pepys and Evelyn	82	(6)
Collections and Lists: The Philosophical Transactions, Swift, Pope	88	(8)
Writing Things	96	(27)
Emblems: The Pilgrim's Progress, Part II	97	(11)
Things (1): Defoe	108	(6)
Things (2): The Castle of Outranto	114	(9)
Implied Spaces	123	(26)
Spaces (1): Behn, Haywood, Aubin, Davys	125	(12)
Spaces (2): Pamela, Clarissa	137	(12)
Worlds of Goods	149	(28)
Worlds of Goods	150	(4)
Theories of Description	154	(4)
Shopping and Advertising	158	(8)
Auctions and Catalogs	166	(11)
Arranging Things	177	(24)
Furniture and Arrangements	179	(10)
Domestic Tours	189	(8)
Domestication	197	(4)
The Foundling as Heir	201	(30)
The Gothic: Reeve and Radcliffe	203	(11)
Historical Novels: Scott	214	(6)
Historiography: Hume and Gibbon	220	(11)
Afterword: Humphry Repton	231	(6)
Notes	237	(32)
Bibliography	269	(34)
Index	303