Advertising, Subjectivity and the Nineteenth-Century Novel : Dickens, Balzac and the Language of the Walls

From 1830 to 1870 advertising brought in its wake a new understanding of how the subject read and how language operated. Sara Thornton presents a crucial moment in print culture, the early recognition of what we now call a 'virtual' world, and proposes new readings of key texts by Dickens and Balzac. Using the concept of the 'language of the walls' - an expression first used in 1855 - Sara Thornton explores the influence of advertising on the production and consumption of fiction from 1830-1870. Growing systems of advertising (on hoardings, posters, in periodicals and novels) were changing reading and writing practices - and bringing in their wake a new understanding of how the subject read and how language operated. A modernist aesthetic was created by the random collaging of advertising which allowed new structures of thought to emerge. Novelists, journalists and copywriters in France and Britain were able to theorize their own engagement with the advert, and to comment upon its creative and destructive labour. They recognized that the subject hailed by the text and image of the rapidly evolving urban scape was in part constituted by that world of text, relying on it to be in the world. Moving between historical enquiry and theoretical analysis, Thornton traces the early recognition of what we now call a 'virtual' world. She explains a crucial moment in print culture and proposes new readings of key texts by Dickens and Balzac--Résumé de l'éditeur Front Matter....Pages i-xi Introduction....Pages 1-3 The Language of the Walls: Spaces, Practices, Subjectivities....Pages 4-62 Reading the Dickens Advertiser: Merging Paratext and Novel....Pages 63-118 Balzac’s Revolution of Signs: Advertisement as Textual Practice....Pages 119-171 Conclusion....Pages 172-173 Back Matter....Pages 174-214