Kevin L. Cope

Samara Anne Cahill

Rigorously inventive and revelatory in its adventurousness, 1650–1850 opens a forum for the discussion, investigation, and analysis of the full range of long-eighteenth-century writing, thinking, and artistry. Combining fresh considerations of prominent authors and artists with searches for overlooked or offbeat elements of the Enlightenment legacy, 1650–1850 delivers a comprehensive but richly detailed rendering of the first days, the first principles, and the first efforts of modern culture. Its pages open to the works of all nations and language traditions, providing a truly global picture of a period that routinely shattered boundaries. Volume 28 of this long-running journal is no exception to this tradition of focused inclusivity. Readers will experience two blockbuster multi-author special features that explore both the deep traditions and the new frontiers of early modern studies: one that views adaptation and digitization through the lens of “Sterneana,” the vast literary and cultural legacy following on the writings of Laurence Sterne, a legacy that sweeps from Hungarian renditions of the puckish novelist through the Bloomsbury circle and on into cybernetics, and one that pays tribute to legendary scholar Irwin Primer by probing the always popular but also always challenging writings of that enigmatic poet-philosopher, Bernard Mandeville. All that, plus the usual cavalcade of full-length book reviews. ISSN: 1065-3112 Published by Bucknell University Press, distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era (Volume 28)

1650-1850

British writers of the Restoration and eighteenth century initiated a critique of human knowledge unrivaled in both its scope and its enthusiasm. Author Kevin L. Cope now attempts to provide a coherent, evocative account of explanatory rhetoric in early modern Britain. Critics and historians, Cope argues, have done an admirable job of describing the details of the intellectual movements of this period but they have failed to examine the intellectual, social, and psychological implications of explanation itself. Criteria of Certainty makes up for this shortcoming by treating explanation as a composite literary and philosophical mode, as a kind of "master genre" governing the development of a variety of genres, from pithy maxims and lyric poems to lengthy treatises and epics of explanation. Cope's probing and inventive analyses of seven writers -- Rochester, Halifax, Dryden, Locke, Swift, Pope, and Smith -- shed new light on many major issues in both eighteenth-century studies and critical theory. Discussing the gradual enlargement of the claims of explanatory discourse, Cope explores the problematic psychological relation between "philosophizing" authors and their expansionist, systematizing discourse. By applying the methods of recent literary criticism to philosophical texts, Cope reexamines the possibility of a philosophical reading of literary texts, opens the possibility of "characterizing" an age, and sets a variety of genres on a common intellectual foundation. Drawing on both "canonical" and overlooked authors, he also shows how the writers of the Restoration and eighteenth century may help us to understand the immensity, vitality, and irresistibility of explanatory rhetoric in our own age.

Truth and Judgment in the English Enlightenment

Criteria Of Certainty

Robert C. Leitz, III

Textual Studies and the Enlarged Eighteenth Century scrutinizes the culture and sometimes the cult of electronic and other technology-assisted scholarship with respect to eighteenth-century studies.

Precision as Profusion

Textual Studies and the Enlarged Eighteenth Century

In their hundreds of entries and reviews the editorial staff have expanded both the quantity and depth of the work but also re-evaluated the subject headings to better reflect the needs of users, be they professionals or students. General categories include printing and bibliographical studies; historical, social and economic studies; philosophy,

A Current Bibliography

The Eighteenth Century

Robert C. Leitz

A Current Bibliography for 2003

The Eighteenth Century: Current Bibliography for 2003

Cedric D. Reverand II

During his forty-two years as president of AMS Press, Gabriel Hornstein quietly sponsored and stimulated the revival of “long” eighteenth-century studies. Whether by reanimating long-running research publications; by creating scholarly journals; or by converting daring ideas into lauded books, “Gabe” initiated a golden age of Enlightenment scholarship. This understated publishing magnate created a global audience for a research specialty that many scholars dismissed as antiquarianism. Paper, Ink, and Achievement finds in the career of this impresario a vantage point on the modern study of the Enlightenment. An introduction discusses Hornstein’s life and achievements, revealing the breadth of his influence on our understanding of the early days of modernity. Three sets of essays open perspectives on the business of long-eighteenth-century studies: on the role of publishers, printers, and bibliophiles in manufacturing cultural legacies; on authors whose standing has been made or eclipsed by the book culture; and on literary modes that have defined, delimited, or directed Enlightenment studies. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

Kevin L. Cope

Books

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