Description
Book SynopsisA literary history of the old, broken, rusty, dusty, and moldy stuff that people dug up in England during the long eighteenth century. In the eighteenth century, antiquarieswary of the biases of philosophers, scientists, politicians, and historiansused old objects to establish what they claimed was a true account of history. But just what could these small, fragmentary, frequently unidentifiable things, whose origins were unknown and whose worth or meaning was not self-evident, tell people about the past?In Artifacts, Crystal B. Lake unearths the four kinds of old objects that were most frequently found and cataloged in Enlightenment-era England: coins, manuscripts, weapons, and grave goods. Following these prized objects as they made their way into popular culture, Lake develops new interpretations of works by Joseph Addison, John Dryden, Horace Walpole, Jonathan Swift, Tobias Smollett, Lord Byron, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, among others. Rereading these authors with the artifact in
Trade ReviewWhile this review singles out only a few,
Lake's examination of the narratives generated by many eighteenth-century first responders to coins, weapons, manuscripts and grave goods, is thorough and illuminating, as are her detailed and scholarly readings of literary texts where artifacts shape form and content.
—Frances Singh, Hostos Community College, CUNY (emerita),
Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer[A] engaging and thought-provoking study.
—Kate Smith, University of Birmingham,
Journal of British Studies..., the book is a powerful reminder of the nuances that paying more attention to objects can bring to the study of the intersections between literature and politics in the long eighteenth century.
—Giacomo Savani, University College Dublin,
Modern PhilologyTable of ContentsList of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Prologue. Things Speaking for Themselves
Part I. Terms and Contexts
Chapter 1. Leaving Room to Guess
Chapter 2. Ten Thousand Gimcracks
Part II. Case Studies
Chapter 3. Coins: The Most Vocal Monuments
Chapter 4. Manuscripts: Burnt to a Crust
Chapter 5. Weapons: A Wilderness of Arms
Chapter 6. Grave Goods: The Kings' Four Bodies
Afterword. The Artifactual Form
Notes
Works Cited
Index
