The early eighteenth century saw a far-reaching financial revolution in England, whose impact on the literature of the period has hitherto been relatively unexplored. In this original study, Colin Nicholson reads familiar texts such as Gulliver's Travels, The Beggar's Opera and The Dunciad as 'capital satires', responding to the social and political effects of the installation of capitalist financial institutions in London. The founding of the Bank of England and the inauguration of the National Debt permanently altered the political economy of England: the South Sea Bubble disaster of 1721 educated a political generation into the money markets. While they invested in stocks and shares, Swift, Pope and Gay conducted a campaign against the civic effects of these new financial institutions. Conflict between these writers' inherited discourse of civic humanism and the transformations being undergone by their own society, is shown to have had a profound effect on a number of key literary texts.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
ISBN-13
9780521604482
eBay Product ID (ePID)
94698235
Product Key Features
Book Title
Writing and the Rise of Finance: Capital Satires of the Early Eighteenth Century
Author
Colin Nicholson
Format
Paperback
Language
English
Topic
Literature
Publication Year
2004
Number of Pages
240 Pages
Dimensions
Item Height
229mm
Item Width
150mm
Item Weight
362g
Additional Product Features
Title_Author
Colin Nicholson
Series Title
Cambridge Studies in Eighteenth-Century English Literature and Thought
Country/Region of Manufacture
United Kingdom
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