1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910838293203321

Autore

Eckert Lindsey

Titolo

The Limits of Familiarity : Authorship and Romantic Readers

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New Brunswick : , : Bucknell University Press, , 2022

©2022

ISBN

9781684483945

9781684483914

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (259 pages)

Collana

Transits: Literature, Thought and Culture 1650-1850

Disciplina

820.9/145

820.9145

Soggetti

Books and reading - Great Britain - History - 18th century

Fame - Social aspects - Great Britain - History - 18th century

Authors and readers - Great Britain - History - 18th century

Romanticism - England

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- ILLUSTRATIONS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- ABBREVIATIONS -- INTRODUCTION Familiarity’s “due bounds” -- 1 CHARLOTTE SMITH, WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, AND THE PROBLEMS OF READING FAMILIARITY -- 2 “THOUGH A STRANGER TO YOU” Byron’s Poetics of Familiarity and Readerly Attachment -- 3 LADY CAROLINE LAMB’S FEMALE FOLLIES AND THE DANGERS OF FAMILIARITY -- 4 “THE WHOLE CURSED STORY” William Hazlitt’s Familiar Style -- 5 MEDIATING A MANUSCRIPT ETHOS Familiarity in Albums and Literary Annuals -- CODA Lifting “the film of familiarity” -- NOTES -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX -- ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sommario/riassunto

"What did Wordsworth wear, and where did he walk? Who was Byron's new mistress, and how did his marriage fare? Answers-sometimes accurate, sometimes not-were tantalizingly at the ready for Romantic-era readers. Confessional poetry, romans à clef, personal essays, gossip columns, and more gave readers exceptional access to well-known authors. But how close was too close? Widely recognized as a social virtue, familiarity-a feeling of emotional closeness or comforting predictability-could also be dangerous, vulgar, or boring. In The Limits



of Familiarity, Eckert argues that these questions influenced literary production in the Romantic period. Uniting reception studies, celebrity studies, and literary history to reveal how anxieties about familiarity shaped both Romanticism and conceptions of authorship, this book encourages us to reflect in our own fraught historical moment on the line between telling all and telling all too much"--