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the Conversational Circle: Rereading English Novel, 1740-1775
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the Conversational Circle: Rereading English Novel, 1740-1775
Current price: $30.00
Barnes and Noble
the Conversational Circle: Rereading English Novel, 1740-1775
Current price: $30.00
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Size: Hardcover
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Betty Schellenberg identifies another kind of plot, one that focuses on the social group—the "conversational circle"—as a model that can affirm traditional values but just as often promotes an alternative sense of community. Schellenberg selects a group of mid-eighteenth-century novels that experiment with this alternative plot structure, embodied by the social circle. Both satirical and sentimental, canonical and non-canonical, these novels demonstrate a concern that individualistic desire threatened to destabilize society. Writing that reflects a circular structure emphasizes conversation and consensus over individualism and conquest. As a discourse that highlights negotiation and harmony, conversation privileges the social group over the individual.
These fictions of the conversation circle include lesser-known works by canonical authors (Henry Fielding's
and Richards's
as well as his sequel to
), long-neglected novels by women (Sarah Fielding's
and its sequel
, and Sarah Scott's
), and Tobias Smollet's last novel,
. Because they do not fit the linear model, such works have long been dismissed as ideologically flawed and irrelevant.