Public, Private, and the Division of Knowledge
"[Michael McKeon] asks how the modern notion of the public-private relation emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries along with the institution of domesticity. This book draws upon the entire spectrum of English people's experience"--Page 4 of cover
The Case of Dryden's Annus Mirabilis
Exploring the intricate relationship between political dynamics and poetic expression during Restoration England, this book delves into how literature reflected and influenced the tumultuous political landscape of the time. It examines key poets and their works, revealing how their writings responded to and shaped contemporary political discourse. Through a critical analysis of themes and historical context, the text offers insights into the cultural significance of poetry in reflecting societal changes and conflicts during this pivotal era.
A major collection of essays on the novel. Michael McKeon, author of The Origins of the English Novel, 1600-1740, here assembles a collection of influential essays on the theory of the novel. Carefully chosen selections from Frye, Benjamin, Lévi-Strauss, Lukács, Bakhtin, and other prominent theorists explore the historical significance of the novel as a genre, from its early beginnings to its modern variations in the postmodern novel and postcolonial novel. Offering a generous selection of key theoretical texts for students and scholars alike, Theory of the Novel also presents a provocative argument for studying the genre. In his introduction to the volume and in headnotes to each section, McKeon argues that genre theory and history provide the best approach to understanding the novel. All the selections in this anthology date from the twentieth century—most from the last forty years—and represent the attempts of different theorists, and different theoretical schools, to describe the historical stages of the genre's formal development.