The "emergence of literature in eighteenth-century France" changes our understanding of when, how and why modern ideas of literature emerged in France. Using a unique blend of literary and digital methods, it argues that it was in the mid eighteenth century, rather than the nineteenth (as many have claimed), that the word littrature…

Eighteenth-century actor and playwright Eusebio Vela, long thought to be born in Mexico but actually born in Spain, dominated Mexico City's Coliseo theater for decades and has been variously interpreted as a creole patriot or as a Spanish propagandist. Vela's four extant plays, which treat the fall of Spain, Telemachus's wanderings in the…

As a professor of eighteenth-century British Literature I am often tasked (like my colleagues in other areas) with constructing a period based syllabus that "represents" this portion of literary history. Every semester, without fail, I am befuddled by the word "represents." How, exactly, do I want to "represent" the…

Rather than focussing on the relationship between science and literature, this article attempts to read scientific writing as literature. It explores a somewhat neglected element of the story of the emergence of geology in the late eighteenth century--James Hutton's unpublished accounts of the tours of Scotland that he undertook in the years…

One of the most popular Dutch educational enlightenment authors was Hieronymus van Alphen. His three volumes of "Little Poems for Children" published in 1778 and 1782 were extremely successful, both in the Netherlands and abroad. Inspired by the German poets Christian Felix Weisse and Gottlob Wilhelm Burmann, Van Alphen brought about an…

This thesis attempts to search for the clues related to British domestic exploitation of the peasant labors and overseas colonization of other countries after rereading the novel "Pride and Prejudice," with an aim to bring out Austen's intimacy with Imperialism. It will offer some insights into a better understanding of provincial world…

Background: Twenty-first-century undergraduates often find eighteenth-century culture difficult to access and, influenced by popular assumptions about the period in current media theory, characterise the century as individualist, underestimating the cultural significance of social networking in literary and political history. Purpose: This study…

Reviews eighteenth and nineteenth century Canadian literature. Notes that despite its cultural significance, this early literature has been dismissed by critics and scholars. (MM)

Examines, rhetorically, the formal dynamics and internal action of an eighteenth-century political text by Edmund Burke, the "Letter to William Elliott, Esq." (1795). (SR)

Explores how argumentation in the eighteenth-century miracles controversy (a century-long debate in Britain over the reasonableness of revealed religion) exhibited a controlling concern for procedural considerations. Discusses how the Deists and the Orthodox apologists used their argumentative force to advance rival methods for evaluating miracle…

Proposes satire as a form of argumentative practice. Examines eighteenth-century satirical attacks upon London's ubiquitous debating societies (formed among tradesmen, craftsmen, professionals, and small businessmen to "improve" themselves) as evidence of satire's public role in which the ideological struggle between social classes was…

Suggests that the poetry and the life of Aphra Behn illumines the dynamic of a fascinating transitional period in definitions of gender and sexuality; and that she was the true pioneer of this brave new world of sexual possibility in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. (RS)

This resource book provides 26 learning activities with background materials for teaching about the Enlightenment. Topics include: (1) "What Was the Enlightenment?"; (2) "An Introduction to the Philosophes"; (3) "Was the Enlightenment a Revolt Against Rationalism?"; (4) "Were the Philosophes Democrats? A…

Reviews the use of humor in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Black Creole Jamaican literature and song. Concludes that irony is inherent in the creative expression of early Jamaicans and writers about Jamaica, arising from inconsistencies of attitudes of Blacks toward Whites and toward themselves. (FMW)

Discusses the work of Frenchman Charles Perrault, the seminal figure in fairy tales, and puts it in context of the French fairy tale fashion. Describes how the fairy tale came to England. Describes how the Germans revived the fairy tale at the end of the 18th century, and discusses the work of the Brothers Grimm. (SR)