Reading Gossip in Early Eighteenth-Century England

Parsons, Nicola

doi:10.1057/9780230244764

Cited by 27 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Manley scholarship has also been informed by recent research on eighteenth‐century reading practices, including Kate Loveman's Reading Fictions, 1660–1740: Deception in English Literary and Political Culture () and Nicola Parsons's Reading Gossip in Early Eighteenth‐Century England (). Parsons takes seriously Manley's work as a secret historian and the significance of reading practices for secret history.…”

Section: Recent Scholarship On Manley's Political Secret Historiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scholarship on Delarivier Manley: Past, Present, and Future

Carnell

2017

Literature Compass

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This essay offers an overview of scholarship on Delarivier Manley, from her marginalization by twentieth‐century literary historians, to her scholarly recuperation in the 1980s, to the recent critical reappraisal of her as an innovative writer of political secret histories and an important voice in the female theatre world of the 1690s. This recent scholarship corrects the misperception of Manley as a (mediocre) novelist and finally does her justice as an innovator in every genre in which she wrote—including drama, poetry, epistolary travelogue, secret history, periodical, pamphlet, memoir, and novella. An overview of the historical trends in the field is followed by summaries of recent research on her works in various literary genres.

show abstract

Section: Recent Scholarship On Manley's Political Secret Historiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scholarship on Delarivier Manley: Past, Present, and Future

Carnell

2017

Literature Compass

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…At the same time, a number of recent studies have considered the consequences for reading of what I will call the paradoxical non‐transparency of eighteenth‐century publications. Nicola Parsons argues that secret histories under Queen Anne, which reproduced the problematical relationship between openness and secrecy in the political culture, “foregrounded the role of the reader in decoding the text” and ensured even in their supposed “keys” that “this act of interpretation can follow multiple paths” (Parsons, 9). Kate Loveman and Jack Lynch demonstrate the ubiquity of literary forgeries, frauds, impostures and hoaxes in books and printed matter, to suggest that a “chief duty” of readers was to “avoid being gulled” and describe methods readers used to try to detect deceptions.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

History of Reading: The long Eighteenth Century

Bannet

2013

Literature Compass

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Ermine was historically used to trim important ceremonial robes, such as coronation robes, or those worn by peers in the House of Lords. 38 As such, ermine connoted wealth, prestige and power, and highlighted the honours arising from Sarah's near connection to the monarchy. Other reproductions show a coronet, set on the table behind her.…”

Section: Honourmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…42 But reputation-shame had a positive side, where the adherence to the social codes could gain one credit. Sarah's writings were clear attempts to prove that she had adhered to such standards and thus avoided reputation-shame, outlining her loyalty towards Anne as well as her own kindnesses towards those who sought to 38 Albans, where she lived with me and my Children, and I treated her with as great Kindness, as if she had been my Sister." 46 She further outlined how, in 1704, she and her husband had secured beneficial positions for Abigail at court and Abigail's brother in the army.…”

Section: Sympathy and The Refutation Of Reputation-shamementioning

confidence: 99%

“…37 Lee Horsley uses four of the cards as an illustration of the Tory mob violence surrounding Henry and his intense popularity as portrayed in print. 38 The red suits of these cards also feature on the blog The Printshop Window, which investigates the cards as memorabilia connected to Henry. These texts focus on Henry's role in the cards but Sarah's presence remains to be explored.…”

Section: Playing Card Representationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Divisive Representations: Media and Emotions in Early Eighteenth-Century English Political Celebrity

Boddy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This thesis explores how media sources represented political celebrities in early eighteenth-century England. It argues that writers deployed certain words, images and tropes to instigate deeply divisive emotional responses from their readers, pushing beyond the notion of intimacy often discussed in celebrity studies. Moreover, writers often highlighted the same facts or events about an individual to present contrasting representations. Political celebrities’ representations in media were thus often intense and conflicting: media sources shaped representations in the context of the divided and rancorous political milieu, building on emotions relating to past and current political events. This thesis investigates these emotional representations in the media via close analysis of how commenters discussed the lives of Sarah Churchill (1660–1744), Duchess of Marlborough, and the Reverend Dr. Henry Sacheverell (1674–1724). Sarah and Henry were non-traditional political celebrities: Sarah saw herself as playing a key role in court politics as advisor to Queen Anne before their contentious split in 1711. Henry used the pulpit to preach politics and was impeached for it in 1710. Sarah’s influence with Queen Anne and Henry’s outspokenness made them both lightning rods for media sources: pamphlets, books, broadsheets, satirical images, portrait reproductions, playing cards all featured Sarah and Henry as subjects. Such opinionated media sources offered specific points of view and deployed emotive language and images. Scholars have analysed the hundreds of printed materials produced in the early eighteenth century, but not via an emotional lens. Media sources helped to create the public image of Sarah and Henry, building upon or detracting from self-fashioning both Sarah and Henry attempted during years of heated political debates. This thesis is organised around themes of authority, nation, religion and gender and explores how writers discussed politics through representations of Sarah and Henry. The Glorious Revolution, notions of freedom and tyranny or even expectations about gender linked ideologies to celebrities. Equally, ideas about the state of the church and about expected masculine or feminine behaviours were fruitful routes for media sources to depict both figures in a positive and negative light. Media thus linked the public persona of the celebrity to issues much greater than themselves to elicit emotional reactions.Whether writers tried to play on positive or negative emotions, they either purposefully or inadvertently enhanced the celebrity status of Sarah and Henry. Multiple, simultaneous emotional representations explain how a celebrity could be portrayed both as a figure of adoration and a figure of disdain. Where previous studies of celebrity have discussed notions of intimacy, hinting at a positive emotional connection, this study explores the negative as well as positive emotions that could be used in emotional representations of political celebrities, more explicitly drawing out the emotional tensions of political celebrity. As such, this thesis highlights five emotions that recur throughout these media representations: anger, fear, shame, admiration and sympathy. These multiple positive and negative emotional representations co-existed even when they contradicted one another.

show abstract

Reading Gossip in Early Eighteenth-Century England

Cited by 27 publications

References 0 publications

Scholarship on Delarivier Manley: Past, Present, and Future

Scholarship on Delarivier Manley: Past, Present, and Future

History of Reading: The long Eighteenth Century

Divisive Representations: Media and Emotions in Early Eighteenth-Century English Political Celebrity

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About