- ホーム
- > 洋書
- > 英文書
- > Literary Criticism
Full Description
Why do invocations of 'the people' carry such force in current political discourse and public debate? This book offers an ambitiously transhistorical account of the ways that 'the people' has figured in British literature and culture. Ranging from the later mediaeval period to the present, the twenty-three chapters draw on substantial new research to show that the figure of the people has been put to reactionary and progressive ends and that its meanings are less obvious and fixed than contemporary commentators would have us believe. Providing a much-needed critical prehistory for our own current moment, the contributors also build on ideas and methods from other disciplines, such as political theory, sociology, and media history. As such, this important new volume will be of interest to a wide range of readers across periods and disciplines.
Contents
Introduction; Benjamin Kohlmann and Matthew Taunton; Part I. Popular Democracy: Representation and the People: 1. Writing the commons, c. 1400 Andrew Galloway; 2. States of peace: anti-war thought within and beyond the nation in the eighteenth century Andrea Haslanger; 3. Antisemitism, sex, and citizenship: G. W. M. Reynolds and Chartism Ella Dzelzainis; 4. Meritocracy, adult education, and 'the people's' culture at the mid-century Natasha Periyan; 5. The common wealth vs. the common good? Race, class, and social citizenship in the welfare state J. Dillon Brown; Part II. The Revolutionary People: 6. The people and the English civil wars John West; 7. 'The scattered million': the people in British radicalism of the 1790s Jon Mee; 8. Revolutionary horizons, reformist hopes: anarchism and radical imagination in an era of mass democracy, 1850-1910 Charlotte Jones; 9. Experiments in left populism: British literature between the wars Elinor Taylor; Part III. 'One of Us': Unity, Difference and the People: 10. Creating the people: history and myth in the national literatures of medieval Britain and Ireland Helen Fulton; 11. 'Art thou base, common and popular?' Shakespearean theatre and the people Peter Womack; 12. Black people, enslaved populations: registration and rights in the British Caribbean, 1787-1838 Ramesh Mallipeddi; 13. Ship-Worlds: from Victorian 'Mob' to people's history Santanu Das; Part IV. In the Name of the People: 14. Dissolving the people Steven Connor; 15. Exhibiting the people: the great exhibition and the iconography of the masses in mid-Victorian print culture Ian Haywood; 16. The people's war: literature and the second world war Sarah Cole; 17. The voices of the people: literature in the thatcher years Joseph Brooker; Part V. The People Now: 18. Devolution, nationalism, and the rhetoric of independence Nick Hubble; 19. The enemy within: literary writing, popular resistance, and the contemporary Mark Steven; 20. The people against the body, queer bodies against the nation João Florêncio; 21. The people, the masses, and the educated elite; or, democracy in the age of the internet Regenia Gagnier.
