Author: Bernard Mandeville
Publisher: Good Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 62
Book Description
The Enquiry into the Causes of the Frequent Executions at Tyburn was originally published as a series of letters to the British Journal. The first letter appeared on February 27, 1725; just twelve days before, Jonathan Wild, self-proclaimed "Thief-Catcher General of Great Britain and Ireland," had been arrested and imprisoned in Newgate. Thus the inquiry had special timeliness and forms a part of the contemporary interest in the increasingly notorious activities of Wild. Wild's systematic exploitation of the London underworld and his callous betrayal of his colleagues in criminality (he received £40 from the government for each capital conviction he could claim) had created public protest since at least 1718 when an act (which Mandeville cites in his Preface) directed against receivers of stolen goods was passed, most probably with the primary intention of curtailing Wild's operations. Wild's notoriety was at its peak in 1724-5 after his successful apprehension of Joseph Blake ("Blueskin") and Jack Sheppard, the latter figure becoming a kind of national hero after his five escapes from prison (he was recaptured by Wild each time). The timeliness of Mandeville's pamphlet extends, of course, beyond its interest in Jonathan Wild, who after all receives comparatively little of Mandeville's attention. The spectacle of Tyburn itself and the civil and moral failures it represented was one which Londoners could scarcely ignore and which for some provided a morbid fascination. Mandeville's vivid description of the condemned criminal in Newgate, his journey to Tyburn, and his "turning off," must have been strikingly forceful to his contemporaries, who knew all too well the accuracy of his description.
An Enquiry into the Causes of the Frequent Executions at Tyburn (1725)
Author: Bernard Mandeville
Publisher: Good Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 62
Book Description
The Enquiry into the Causes of the Frequent Executions at Tyburn was originally published as a series of letters to the British Journal. The first letter appeared on February 27, 1725; just twelve days before, Jonathan Wild, self-proclaimed "Thief-Catcher General of Great Britain and Ireland," had been arrested and imprisoned in Newgate. Thus the inquiry had special timeliness and forms a part of the contemporary interest in the increasingly notorious activities of Wild. Wild's systematic exploitation of the London underworld and his callous betrayal of his colleagues in criminality (he received £40 from the government for each capital conviction he could claim) had created public protest since at least 1718 when an act (which Mandeville cites in his Preface) directed against receivers of stolen goods was passed, most probably with the primary intention of curtailing Wild's operations. Wild's notoriety was at its peak in 1724-5 after his successful apprehension of Joseph Blake ("Blueskin") and Jack Sheppard, the latter figure becoming a kind of national hero after his five escapes from prison (he was recaptured by Wild each time). The timeliness of Mandeville's pamphlet extends, of course, beyond its interest in Jonathan Wild, who after all receives comparatively little of Mandeville's attention. The spectacle of Tyburn itself and the civil and moral failures it represented was one which Londoners could scarcely ignore and which for some provided a morbid fascination. Mandeville's vivid description of the condemned criminal in Newgate, his journey to Tyburn, and his "turning off," must have been strikingly forceful to his contemporaries, who knew all too well the accuracy of his description.
Publisher: Good Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 62
Book Description
The Enquiry into the Causes of the Frequent Executions at Tyburn was originally published as a series of letters to the British Journal. The first letter appeared on February 27, 1725; just twelve days before, Jonathan Wild, self-proclaimed "Thief-Catcher General of Great Britain and Ireland," had been arrested and imprisoned in Newgate. Thus the inquiry had special timeliness and forms a part of the contemporary interest in the increasingly notorious activities of Wild. Wild's systematic exploitation of the London underworld and his callous betrayal of his colleagues in criminality (he received £40 from the government for each capital conviction he could claim) had created public protest since at least 1718 when an act (which Mandeville cites in his Preface) directed against receivers of stolen goods was passed, most probably with the primary intention of curtailing Wild's operations. Wild's notoriety was at its peak in 1724-5 after his successful apprehension of Joseph Blake ("Blueskin") and Jack Sheppard, the latter figure becoming a kind of national hero after his five escapes from prison (he was recaptured by Wild each time). The timeliness of Mandeville's pamphlet extends, of course, beyond its interest in Jonathan Wild, who after all receives comparatively little of Mandeville's attention. The spectacle of Tyburn itself and the civil and moral failures it represented was one which Londoners could scarcely ignore and which for some provided a morbid fascination. Mandeville's vivid description of the condemned criminal in Newgate, his journey to Tyburn, and his "turning off," must have been strikingly forceful to his contemporaries, who knew all too well the accuracy of his description.
Mandeville Studies
Author: I. Primer
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 940101633X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 239
Book Description
For centuries readers have admired the writer who wields his pen like a sword - an Aristophanes, a Rabelais, a Montaigne, a Swift. Using ribaldry, satire and irony in varying proportions, such writers pierce the thick, comfortable hide of society and uncover, predictably, the corruption and hypocrisy that characterize the life of man in commercial society. Though a lesser talent than any of these literary giants, Bernard Mande ville is nevertheless a member of their class. The crucial year in the emergence of his reputation was 1723, the year in which he added his controversial Essay on Charity and Charity-Schools to his Fable of the Bees. From that point on he became one of the most reviled targets of the public guardians of morality and religion; for some he appeared to be truly the Devil incarnate, Mandevil, as Fielding and others spelled it. This reputation was attached to his name well into the nineteenth centu ry. In a diary entry for June 1812 Henry Crabb Robinson recorded the following conversation with the elderly Mrs. Buller: "She received me with a smile, and allowed me to touch her hand. 'What are you reading, Mr. Robinson?' she said. 'The wickedest cleverest book in the English language, if you chance to know it. ' - 'I have known the "Fable of the Bees" more than fifty years. ' She was right in her guess.
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 940101633X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 239
Book Description
For centuries readers have admired the writer who wields his pen like a sword - an Aristophanes, a Rabelais, a Montaigne, a Swift. Using ribaldry, satire and irony in varying proportions, such writers pierce the thick, comfortable hide of society and uncover, predictably, the corruption and hypocrisy that characterize the life of man in commercial society. Though a lesser talent than any of these literary giants, Bernard Mande ville is nevertheless a member of their class. The crucial year in the emergence of his reputation was 1723, the year in which he added his controversial Essay on Charity and Charity-Schools to his Fable of the Bees. From that point on he became one of the most reviled targets of the public guardians of morality and religion; for some he appeared to be truly the Devil incarnate, Mandevil, as Fielding and others spelled it. This reputation was attached to his name well into the nineteenth centu ry. In a diary entry for June 1812 Henry Crabb Robinson recorded the following conversation with the elderly Mrs. Buller: "She received me with a smile, and allowed me to touch her hand. 'What are you reading, Mr. Robinson?' she said. 'The wickedest cleverest book in the English language, if you chance to know it. ' - 'I have known the "Fable of the Bees" more than fifty years. ' She was right in her guess.
Infamous Commerce
Author: Laura J. Rosenthal
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801454344
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 405
Book Description
In Infamous Commerce, Laura J. Rosenthal uses literature to explore the meaning of prostitution from the Restoration through the eighteenth century, showing how both reformers and libertines constructed the modern meaning of sex work during this period. From Grub Street's lurid "whore biographies" to the period's most acclaimed novels, the prostitute was depicted as facing a choice between abject poverty and some form of sex work. Prostitution, in Rosenthal's view, confronted the core controversies of eighteenth-century capitalism: luxury, desire, global trade, commodification, social mobility, gender identity, imperialism, self-ownership, alienation, and even the nature of work itself. In the context of extensive research into printed accounts of both male and female prostitution—among them sermons, popular prostitute biographies, satire, pornography, brothel guides, reformist writing, and travel narratives—Rosenthal offers in-depth readings of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa and Pamela and the responses to the latter novel (including Eliza Haywood's Anti-Pamela), Bernard Mandeville's defenses of prostitution, Daniel Defoe's Roxana, Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, and travel journals about the voyages of Captain Cook to the South Seas. Throughout, Rosenthal considers representations of the prostitute's own sexuality (desire, revulsion, etc.) to be key parts of the changing meaning of "the oldest profession."
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801454344
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 405
Book Description
In Infamous Commerce, Laura J. Rosenthal uses literature to explore the meaning of prostitution from the Restoration through the eighteenth century, showing how both reformers and libertines constructed the modern meaning of sex work during this period. From Grub Street's lurid "whore biographies" to the period's most acclaimed novels, the prostitute was depicted as facing a choice between abject poverty and some form of sex work. Prostitution, in Rosenthal's view, confronted the core controversies of eighteenth-century capitalism: luxury, desire, global trade, commodification, social mobility, gender identity, imperialism, self-ownership, alienation, and even the nature of work itself. In the context of extensive research into printed accounts of both male and female prostitution—among them sermons, popular prostitute biographies, satire, pornography, brothel guides, reformist writing, and travel narratives—Rosenthal offers in-depth readings of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa and Pamela and the responses to the latter novel (including Eliza Haywood's Anti-Pamela), Bernard Mandeville's defenses of prostitution, Daniel Defoe's Roxana, Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, and travel journals about the voyages of Captain Cook to the South Seas. Throughout, Rosenthal considers representations of the prostitute's own sexuality (desire, revulsion, etc.) to be key parts of the changing meaning of "the oldest profession."
Harlequin Britain
Author: John O'Brien
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801879104
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
In the fall of 1723, two London theaters staged, almost simultaneously, pantomime performances of the Faust story. Unlike traditional five-act plays, pantomime—a bawdy hybrid of dance, music, spectacle, and commedia dell'arte featuring the familiar figure of the harlequin at its center—was a theatrical experience of unprecedented accessibility. The immediate popularity of this new genre drew theater apprentices to the cities to learn the new style, and pantomime became the subject of lively debate within British society. Alexander Pope and Henry Fielding bitterly opposed the intrusion into legitimate literary culture of what they regarded as fairground amusements that appealed to sensation and passion over reason and judgment. In Harlequin Britain, literary scholar John O'Brien examines this new form of entertainment and the effect it had on British culture. Why did pantomime become so popular so quickly? Why was it perceived as culturally threatening and socially destabilizing? O’Brien finds that pantomime’s socially subversive commentary cut through the dampened spirit of debate created by Robert Walpole's one-party rule. At the same time, pantomime appealed to the abstracted taste of the mass audience. Its extraordinary popularity underscores the continuing centrality of live performance in a culture that is most typically seen as having shifted its attention to the written text—in particular, to the novel. Written in a lively style rich with anecdotes, Harlequin Britain establishes the emergence of eighteenth-century English pantomime, with its promiscuous blending of genres and subjects, as a key moment in the development of modern entertainment culture.
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801879104
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
In the fall of 1723, two London theaters staged, almost simultaneously, pantomime performances of the Faust story. Unlike traditional five-act plays, pantomime—a bawdy hybrid of dance, music, spectacle, and commedia dell'arte featuring the familiar figure of the harlequin at its center—was a theatrical experience of unprecedented accessibility. The immediate popularity of this new genre drew theater apprentices to the cities to learn the new style, and pantomime became the subject of lively debate within British society. Alexander Pope and Henry Fielding bitterly opposed the intrusion into legitimate literary culture of what they regarded as fairground amusements that appealed to sensation and passion over reason and judgment. In Harlequin Britain, literary scholar John O'Brien examines this new form of entertainment and the effect it had on British culture. Why did pantomime become so popular so quickly? Why was it perceived as culturally threatening and socially destabilizing? O’Brien finds that pantomime’s socially subversive commentary cut through the dampened spirit of debate created by Robert Walpole's one-party rule. At the same time, pantomime appealed to the abstracted taste of the mass audience. Its extraordinary popularity underscores the continuing centrality of live performance in a culture that is most typically seen as having shifted its attention to the written text—in particular, to the novel. Written in a lively style rich with anecdotes, Harlequin Britain establishes the emergence of eighteenth-century English pantomime, with its promiscuous blending of genres and subjects, as a key moment in the development of modern entertainment culture.
The Shadow of Death
Author: Mark Canuel
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691171211
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
The Shadow of Death is a timely and ambitious reassessment of English Romantic literature and the unique role it played in one of the great liberal political causes of the modern age. Mark Canuel argues that Romantic writers in Great Britain led one of the earliest assaults on the death penalty and were instrumental in bringing about penal-law reforms. He demonstrates how writers like Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, William Wordsworth, and Jane Austen defined the fundamental contradictions that continue to inform today's debates about capital punishment. Celebrated reformers like Sir Samuel Romilly and William Ewart campaigned against the widespread use of death to punish crimes ranging from murder to petty theft, but they were most influential for initiating a system of penalties built upon conflicting motivations and justifications. Canuel examines the ways Romantic poets and novelists magnified these tensions while treating them as uniquely aesthetic opportunities, seized upon contending rationales of punishment to express imaginative power, and revealed how the imagination fueled the new penal code's disturbing vitality. Death-penalty reform, Canuel argues, in fact emerged from a new way of thinking about punishment as a negotiation among rationales rather than a seamless whole, with leniency and severity constantly at odds. He concludes by exploring how Romantic penal reform continues to influence contemporary views about the justice--and injustice--of legal sanctions.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691171211
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
The Shadow of Death is a timely and ambitious reassessment of English Romantic literature and the unique role it played in one of the great liberal political causes of the modern age. Mark Canuel argues that Romantic writers in Great Britain led one of the earliest assaults on the death penalty and were instrumental in bringing about penal-law reforms. He demonstrates how writers like Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, William Wordsworth, and Jane Austen defined the fundamental contradictions that continue to inform today's debates about capital punishment. Celebrated reformers like Sir Samuel Romilly and William Ewart campaigned against the widespread use of death to punish crimes ranging from murder to petty theft, but they were most influential for initiating a system of penalties built upon conflicting motivations and justifications. Canuel examines the ways Romantic poets and novelists magnified these tensions while treating them as uniquely aesthetic opportunities, seized upon contending rationales of punishment to express imaginative power, and revealed how the imagination fueled the new penal code's disturbing vitality. Death-penalty reform, Canuel argues, in fact emerged from a new way of thinking about punishment as a negotiation among rationales rather than a seamless whole, with leniency and severity constantly at odds. He concludes by exploring how Romantic penal reform continues to influence contemporary views about the justice--and injustice--of legal sanctions.
Publication
Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript
Author: Samuel Richardson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English literature
Languages : en
Pages : 450
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English literature
Languages : en
Pages : 450
Book Description
Bernard Mandeville
Author: Richard I. Cook
Publisher: Macmillan Reference USA
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Book Description
Publisher: Macmillan Reference USA
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Book Description
Men, Manners and Critics
Author: Augustan Reprint Society
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English literature
Languages : en
Pages : 76
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English literature
Languages : en
Pages : 76
Book Description
Wonders in the Sun
Author: Thomas D'Urfey
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English essays
Languages : en
Pages : 98
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English essays
Languages : en
Pages : 98
Book Description