The House, the World, and the Theatre

Download or read book The House, the World, and the Theatre written by Geraldo Magela Cáffaro and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2016-02-29 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The House, the World, and the Theatre departs from three ideologically resonant spatial metaphors to explore key aspects of nineteenth-century literature and culture. At the centre of the discussion is the way authors fashioned themselves to cater to ever-expanding audiences and to the new conditions of publishing. The prefaces of Hawthorne, Dickens, and James illustrate the conflicts underlying the new forms of self-definition in the nineteenth century and mediate the perception of authorship as a category that blurs the boundaries between social life and performance. This book combines genre criticism, new historicism, literary history, and contemporary perspectives in readings that show the imaginative quality of prefatory writing and the enduring relevance of canonical authors in the twenty-first century.