Political Readers and the Associational Reading Space in the Age of Reform

改革时代的政治读者与社团阅读空间

• 批准号: 2487156
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Stirling
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2487156
• 关键词: Political; Readers; Associational; Reading; Space

The focus of my doctoral research would be on the subject of 'political readers' during the Napoleonic era. Focusing on readers rather than texts, this would involve an analysis of the ways in which political texts were read and understood by readers and how political events impacted the reading of other kinds of material. This approach would further emphasise the social and political dimensions of reading. Readers were not simply one-dimensional recipients of a text's content and instead brought their own partisan leanings and experiences to the reading of a text. Mark Towsey's recent study, Reading History in Britain and America, c.1750-c.1840 (2019), reaffirmed this and demonstrated that eighteenth-century readers often read texts in ways never intended by authors. Moreover, contemporary readers sometimes used the act of reading to better understand and make sense of events happening in their own times. My proposal would continue this approach although with an analysis of other kinds of texts beyond works of history. The activity of reading did not occur within a vacuum and a reader's approach to a text could be influenced by a host of other factors. Therefore, another aspect of research would be upon the ways in which reading associations, such as subscription libraries or book clubs, negotiated through the politically charged decades of the early nineteenth century. How did events beyond the realm of the associational societies impact proceedings within it, for example in decisions relating to the acquisition of certain books or on the rules which governed the conduct of societal members. I believe that these are questions not currently being asked by the existing historiography. Previous studies have been limited in both the scope and picture of their analysis, particularly focusing on the political pamphlets of Price, Paine and Burke or on events in specific years during the 1790s. There has therefore been little discussion regarding the reading of other kinds of political texts or of reader's experiences in the first few decades of the nineteenth century. Furthermore, there are a host of other texts from which a reader's response can be analysed particularly in the reading of radical or reactionary novels. This latter group, sometimes termed anti-Jacobin novels, were the subject of my Masters' dissertation, as I charted the publication of sixty-nine novels between 1791 and 1818. In doing so I was particularly interested in charting the longevity of such novels, beyond the dates of their first publications through subsequent editions to libraries, booksellers and ultimately readers. Making use of this research, this proposal will be fixed upon readers receptions not only to anti-Jacobin novels but also to works by radical authors such as William Godwin, Robert Bage, Elizabeth Inchbald and Thomas Croft.Deciphering a reader's response is possible through a perusal of diaries, marginalia, commonplace books and recollections in autobiographies yet this research proposal will also be interested in the ways in which reading associations engaged with or censored certain texts and how they dealt with political differences between members. As associational societies of private individuals, book clubs or subscription libraries were representative of their members interests with national politics inevitably played out at a local level.

我博士研究的重点将是拿破仑时代的“政治读者”。关注读者而不是文本，这将涉及分析读者阅读和理解政治文本的方式，以及政治事件如何影响其他类型材料的阅读。这种方法将进一步强调阅读的社会和政治层面。读者不是文本内容的单向度接受者，而是将自己的党派倾向和经验带入文本的阅读中。Mark Towsey最近的研究，阅读历史在英国和美国，c.1750-c.1840（2019），重申了这一点，并证明了十八世纪的读者经常阅读文本的方式从来没有打算由作者。此外，当代读者有时使用阅读的行为，以更好地理解和理解发生在他们自己时代的事件。我的建议将继续这一方法，尽管分析了历史著作以外的其他类型的文本。阅读的活动并不是在真空中发生的，读者对文本的理解会受到许多其他因素的影响。因此，研究的另一个方面将是阅读协会，如订阅图书馆或读书俱乐部，在世纪初政治上充满活力的几十年中进行谈判的方式。社团范围之外的事件如何影响社团内部的程序，例如，在与购买某些书籍有关的决定中，或者在管理社团成员行为的规则中。我认为，这些都是现有史学目前没有提出的问题。以前的研究在分析的范围和画面上都很有限，特别是集中在普莱斯、潘恩和伯克的政治小册子上，或者集中在18世纪90年代特定年份的事件上。因此，在19世纪的最初几十年里，关于其他类型的政治文本或读者经验的阅读的讨论很少。此外，还有许多其他文本，读者的反应可以从中分析，特别是在阅读激进或反动小说时。这后一组，有时被称为反雅各宾小说，是我的硕士论文的主题，因为我在1791年至1818年期间出版了69部小说。在这样做的过程中，我特别感兴趣的是绘制这些小说的寿命，从它们的第一次出版到后来的版本到图书馆，书商和最终的读者。利用这项研究，这项建议将被固定在读者接受不仅是反雅各宾小说，而且对作品的激进作家，如威廉戈德温，罗伯特巴格，伊丽莎白Inchbald和托马斯克罗夫特。破译读者的反应是可能的，通过细读日记，旁注，常见的书籍和自传回忆，但这项研究建议也将感兴趣的方式，阅读协会从事或审查某些文本以及它们如何处理成员之间的政治分歧。作为私人社团，读书俱乐部或订阅图书馆代表着其成员的利益，国家政治不可避免地在地方一级发挥作用。