Epistolary Fiction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola J. Watson
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Letter Writing ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Class Culture ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
Epistolary Fiction ◽  
Private Domain

This chapter examines epistolary fiction. The heyday of epistolary fiction, the novel told entirely or mostly in letters, stretched from the 1750s until the late 1790s, before it suffered abrupt decline and extinction. This pre-eminence is attributable to the century's well-documented investment in letter writing as the prime way of constituting the social and sociability, whether conceived as the private domain of the family or as the wider public sphere. A letter-writing and letter-publishing culture flourished in relation to economics, politics, religion, housekeeping, medicine, travel, and, especially, questions of conduct. Indeed, a new middle-class culture of writing was in the making, and letter writing and the depiction of letter writing played its own part in constructing that culture.

Green Politics and the New Class: Selfishness or Virtue?

1989 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robyn Eckersley
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Production Process ◽  
Green Movement ◽  
New Class ◽  
Green Parties ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
Social Composition ◽  
The Social ◽  
Green Politics ◽  
Material Values

The predominantly new middle-class social composition of the green movement has become a matter of increasing interest in the wake of the success of green parties and the growth of an international green movement. This paper considers the concept of the ‘new class' in relation to two explanations for the social composition of the green movement. The class-interest argument seeks to show that green politics is a means of furthering either middle-class or new-class interests while the ‘new childhood’ argument claims that the development of the green movement is the result of the spread of post-material values, the main bearers of which are the new class. Against these arguments a more comprehensive explanation is presented, which focuses on the education of the new class and its relative structural autonomy from the production process.

Literary Experimentation in Rowland Hill's Village Dialogues: Transcending "Critical Attitudes" in the Face of Societal Ruination

2011 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Adrian J. Wallbank
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
British Society ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Concerted Effort ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Class Culture ◽  
The Face ◽  
Literary Techniques

Adrian J. Wallbank, "Literary Experimentation in Rowland Hill's Village Dialogues: Transcending 'Critical Attitudes' in the Face of Societal Ruination" (pp. 1–36) In the aftermath of the French "Revolution Controversy," middle-class evangelical writers made a concerted effort to rehabilitate the moral fabric of British society. Hannah More's Cheap Repository Tracts (1795–98) are recognized as pivotal within this program, but in this essay I question whether they were really as influential as has been supposed. I argue that autobiographical evidence from the period demonstrates an increasing skepticism toward overt didacticism, and that despite their significant and undeniable penetration within working-class culture, the Cheap Repository Tracts, if not all "received ideologies," were increasingly being rejected by their readers. This essay examines the important contribution that Rowland Hill's Village Dialogues (1801) made to this arena. Hill, like many of his contemporaries, felt that British society was facing ruination, but he also recognized that overt moralizing and didacticism was no longer palatable or effective. I argue that Hill thus experimented with an array of literary techniques—many of which closely intersect with developments occurring within the novel and sometimes appear to contradict or undermine the avowed seriousness of evangelicalism—that not only attempt to circumvent what Jonathan Rose has described as the "critical attitudes" of early-nineteenth-century readers, but also effectively map the "transitional" nature of the shifting literary and social terrains of the period. In so doing, Hill contributed signally to the evolution of the dialogue form (which is often synonymous with mentoring and didacticism), since his use of conversational mimesis and satire predated the colloquialism of John Wilson's Noctes Ambrosianae (1822–35) and Walter Savage Landor's Imaginary Conversations (1824–29).

The Gendered Social Organization of Migration as Work

1997 ◽  
Vol 6 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 295-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet W. Salaff
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Information Source ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Family Resources ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
And Gender

Borrowing concepts from the study of work and occupations as well as gender studies, this paper considers the social organization of migration as gendered work. It explores women's and men's contribution to two aspects of family resources needed to migrate: (a) jobs and the non-market exchanges involved in obtaining work, and (b) the support of kin. The data come from a study of 30 emigrant and non-emigrant families representing three social classes in Hong Kong. We find their “migration work” varies by social class and gender. Since the working class families depend on kin to get resources to emigrate, their “migration work” involves maintaining these kin ties, mainly in the job area. The lower middle class proffer advice to kin, and they view kin as an information source on topics including migration. For the affluent, middle-class who negotiate independently to emigrate, their “migration work” involves linking colleagues to the family.

scholarly journals Brazilian new middle class stratagem: dialectics of consumption and renewal of the overexploitation of labor

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (88) ◽  
pp. 72-95
Author(s):  
Paulo Ricardo Zilio Abdala ◽  
Maria Ceci Misoczky
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Living Conditions ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Social Consensus ◽  
Class Theory ◽  
Stratification Theory ◽  
Theoretical Support ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
The Social

Abstract The argument of this essay is that the ideia of emergence of a new Brazilian middle class was a stratagem adopted to create a positive agenda with transitory social consensus. In order to develop it, we return to the social class theory to discuss the stratification theory, which is the methodological and theoretical support of the so called new middle class. In addition to that, another possibility of analysis is presented, based on the theoretical propositions by Alvaro Vieira Pinto and Ruy Mauro Marini, two authors from the Brazilian social thought, articulating consumption, social classes, work and production as inseparable relationships, part of dependent capitalism contradictions. From these authors´ perspective, it was possible to understand that the expansion of consumption, basis for the new middle class stratagem, temporarily improved the living conditions of people at the expense of deepening the overexploitation of labor, reproducing the development of dependency.

Design in Deloney's Jack of Newbury

PMLA ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 88 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Dorsinville
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
World View ◽  
The State ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Literary Value ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Political Conception ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World

Jack of Newbury's surface realism in characters, setting, and speech has led to an underestimation of its historical and literary value. A close reading reveals the consistent use of the Greco-Roman ethical-political conception of the state, epitomized in the figure of the ruler. Deloney shows his familiarity with this tradition, probably known to him through Erasmus and Sidney, in the three controlling motifs of his novel. First, the middle class of weavers, represented in Jack's household and dramatized in allegories and symbols, is portrayed as a self-sufficient state where peace and harmony reign. Second, this state is shown to be such because of the nature of its ruler, Jack, a benevolent, generous, wise man. Third, the middle-class way of life—hard work, thriftiness, material gains—serves as princely education; accordingly, Jack, from a menial position, goes on to become ruler of the state. Jack of Newbury, as a systematical reordering of an aristocratic tradition, represents the world view of the emergent middle class; and as such, a momentous shift in the social temper of the Renaissance and an important step in the evolution of the novel.

The Effects of Ruralism, Bureaucratic Structure, and Economic Role on Right-Wing Extremism

1974 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodney Schneck ◽  
Douglas Russell ◽  
Ken Scott
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
General Hypothesis ◽  
Economic Role ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
The Social ◽  
Capitalistic System ◽  
Right Wing Extremism

In discussion of the social structure of modern capitalist societies the distinction between the “old” and “new” middle class is common. The old middle class is epitomized by the small businessman and the new middle class by the bureaucratic manager and employee. It has been postulated that the political sentiments and attitudes are different among these two subsets of the middle class. Specifically, it is hypothesized that the old middle class in a mature industrial and capitalistic system is especially vulnerable to right-wing extremism. It is the purpose of this paper to report research testing the above general hypothesis by using three factors of explanation.

scholarly journals Lodewijk De Raet: primordiale nationalist of een organische intellectueel van de nieuwe middenklasse?

2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-141
Author(s):  
Dries Goedertier
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Intellectual Development ◽  
The Political ◽  
Important Work ◽  
Critical Dialogue ◽  
Social Question ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
Ethnic Consciousness ◽  
The Social ◽  
Organic Intellectual

Vanaf de jaren 1880 was de Vlaamse beweging het toneel van een belangrijke politieke en ideologische vernieuwing. Het zogenaamde cultuurflamingantisme verruimde de politieke eisen van de Vlaamse beweging tot de sociale kwestie en het vraagstuk van de economische ontwikkeling. Het sluitstuk van deze analyse was de these dat de secundaire positie van het Nederlands en de sociale en economische achterstelling van Vlaanderen onlosmakelijk verbonden waren. Spilfiguur achter deze economische heroriëntatie van de Vlaamse beweging was de ingenieur, socioloog en econoom Lodewijk De Raet. In deze bijdrage wil ik de politieke vernieuwing die het cultuurflamingantisme vertegenwoordigde in de verf zetten aan de hand van een kritische dialoog met het belangrijke werk van Olivier Boehme. Waar hij De Raet in de eerste plaats ziet als een primordiale nationalist, beschouw ik hem als een intellectueel die het nationalisme omarmde in een context van kapitalistische versnelling. De Raet schreef in een periode van belangrijke sociaaleconomische transformaties die verklaren waarom hij zoveel belang is gaan hechten aan de ‘economie’. In zijn denken toonde hij zich bewust van mondialisering, de concentratie van kapitaal en de ontwikkeling van een nieuwe middenklasse. Ik argumenteer dat De Raet optrad als een organische intellectueel die aan een embryonale ‘Vlaamse leidende stand’ van kapitalisten en ingenieurs duidelijke richtlijnen meegaf. Zij moest het Vlaamse ‘stambewustzijn’ vergroten door zich in te zetten voor de economische, culturele en intellectuele ontwikkeling van Vlaamse middenstanders, boeren en arbeiders. Alleen een ‘Vlaamse Hogeschool’ in Gent zou volgens De Raet bij “machte zijn om de verschillende standen der maatschappij weer samen te brengen”.________Lodewijk de Raet: Primordial Nationalist or an Organic Intellctual of the New Middle Class?From the 1880s onwards, the Flemish Movement was the scene of an important political and ideological renewal. The so-called “cultural flamingantisme” broadened the political demands of the Flemish Movement toward the social question and the issue of economic development. The capstone of the this analysis was the thesis that the secondary position of Dutch and the social and economic backwardness of Flanders were intextricably linked. A key figure behind this economic reorientation of the Flemish Movement was the engineer, sociologist and economist Lodewijk de Raet. In this article, I want to highlight the political renewal represented by cultural flamingantisme by means of a critical dialogue with the important work of Olivier Boehme. Where he sees De Raet as a primordial nationalist first and foremost, I portray him as an intellectual who embraced nationalism in a context of capitalist acceleration. De Raet wrote during a period of important socioeconomic transformations, which explains why he placed so much importance on “economics”. In his thinking, he showed himself to be conscious of globalization, the concentration of capital and the development of a new middle class. I argue that De Raet acted as an organic intellectual who provided clear guidelines to the embryonic “Flemish leading estate” of capitalists and engineers. They had to expand the Flemish “ethnic consciousness” by devoting themselves to the economic, cultural and intellectual development of the Flemish middle class, farmers and laborers. According to De Raet, only a “Flemish University” in Ghent would be able “to bring the different classes of society back together again.”

Romantic Essayism

2019 ◽  
pp. 191-252
Author(s):  
Tim Milnes
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Charles Lamb ◽  
Familiar Essay ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Private Domain

This chapter argues that the Romantic familiar essay privatizes and idealizes the essay’s inherent epistemological ambiguity. While for Addison, Hume, and Johnson, the essayist moderates communication at the borderline of systematic science and the public sphere, for Hazlitt and his contemporary Charles Lamb, the ‘public’ could no longer function as the ground for epistemic solidarity. Once the social intellect of the Scottish Enlightenment was moved into the private domain of consciousness and individual imagination, the essayist was increasingly seen as mediating between idealized phenomenological realms of ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ experience. Consequently, the ludic indeterminacy of the Romantic imagination is oriented by a purely aesthetic purposiveness: its playfulness expresses not the pragmatic presuppositions of communication, but the dark foundations of experience. In aestheticizing the communicative intellect of the eighteenth-century essayists, the identity doublings and performances of the Romantic familiar essay acquire significance as the hypostatized others of a lost wholeness.

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