Reading Gossip in Early Eighteenth-Century England (Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Cultures of Print)

This book analyzes the relation between print cultures and eighteenth-century literary and political practices and, identifying Queen Anne's England as a crucial moment in the public life of gossip, offers readings of key texts that demonstrate how gossip's interpretative strategies shaped readers' participation in the literary and public spheres. Reading Gossip in Early Eighteenth Century England is an innovative account of eighteenth century literature that establishes the productive role of gossip. Identifying Queen Anne's England (1702-1714) as a crucial moment in gossip's public life, Parsons demonstrates that gossip mediated the cultural and political demands of secrecy and openness and modeled an interpretative strategy that shaped readers' participation in both literary culture and in public debates. Focusing on the reader as both an individual agent and a rhetorical figure, Reading Gossip offers new accounts of texts by Delarivier Manley, Daniel Defoe Edmund Curll and Jane Barker, and provides the first analysis of reading practices in the crucial decades between early modernity and the British enlightenment "Nicola Parsons' Reading Gossip is an important revision of Jurgen Habermas's account of the emergence of the public sphere in eighteenth-century England. In provocative readings of works by Manley, Defoe, and Steele, Parsons demonstrates how somatic and discursive regimes of power were implicated with non-normative discourses such as gossip and scandal. Parsons has written an original book that will be of interest to literary and political historians of early eighteenth-century England."--John Richetti, A.M. Rosenthal Professor (Emeritus) of English, University of Pennsylvania, USA Front Matter....Pages i-xi Introduction: Queen Anne’s Bounty....Pages 1-10 Gossip and Government: Deciphering the Body of the State....Pages 11-37 Reading Secrets of State: Delarivier Manley and the New Atalantis....Pages 38-68 Reforming Reference: Trials and Texts....Pages 69-91 Lucubrating London: The Tatler and the Female Tatler....Pages 92-118 A Newer Atalantis: Political and Generic Revolutions....Pages 119-148 Conclusion: Anne’s Legacy....Pages 149-153 Back Matter....Pages 154-211 Machine generated contents note: ContentsAcknowledgments List of IllustrationsIntroduction: Queen Anne's BountyGossip and Government: Deciphering the Body of the StateReading Secrets of State: Delarivier Manley and the New AtalantisReforming Reference: Trials and TextsLucubrating London: The Tatler and the Female TatlerA Newer Atalantis: Political and Generic RevolutionsConclusion: Annes LegacyNotesBibliography.