Technologies of the novel : quantitative data and the evolution of literary systems / Nicholas D. Paige.
| Author/creator | Paige, Nicholas D. author. |
| Format | Book |
| Publication | Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2021. |
| Copyright Date | ©2021 |
| Description | xv, 271 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm |
| Subjects |
| Abstract | "Technologies of the Novel offers the first quantitative history of the novel's development over the course of over two centuries in France and England. As such, it breaks with the common practice of using select works to tell a story about the genre's rise from infancy to adulthood. Instead, via a systematic sampling of nearly 2000 novels, it traces the incubation, development, and subsequent abandonment of a variety of formal devices - the epistolary format or the use of inset narratives, for example, and also the much-remarked propensity of early novelists to pretend they were presenting true stories. The common shorthand of "the novel," then, designates not a single changing thing, but an evolving system, composed of competing artifacts which themselves evolve. These multiple and overlapping changes do not add up to a "story"; nor do they map onto extra-literary developments (e.g., the Scientific Revolution, Capitalism). Instead, this study argues that literary evolution is both patterned and highly contingent, and needs to be understood with the tools developed by historians of technology"-- Provided by publisher. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Issued in other form | Online version: Paige, Nicholas D., 1966- Technologies of the novel First. New York : Cambridge University Press, 2020. 9781108890861 |
| Genre/form | Criticism, interpretation, etc. |
| LCCN | 2020024228 |
| ISBN | 9781108835503 hardcover |
| ISBN | 1108835503 hardcover |
| ISBN | 9781108812849 paperback |
| ISBN | 1108812848 paperback |
| ISBN | electronic book |
| ISBN | electronic book |
Availability
| Library | Location | Call Number | Status | Item Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Joyner | Item has been checked out | PN3331 .P33 2021 | Due 01/04/2027 | Want This? |