Representation and Reality: A Study of Novel Reading in Post-Enlightenment Scotland, 1800-1837

在1800到1837年间，小说在多大程度上以何种方式被呈现为一种改进的文学形式？苏格兰小说家玛丽·布伦顿、苏珊·费里尔、约翰·高尔特、伊丽莎白·汉密尔顿、詹姆斯·霍格和沃尔特·斯科特的小说阅读在多大程度上和以何种方式反映在当代读者的借阅倾向中？这些倾向在多大程度上和以何种方式揭示了后启蒙运动时期苏格兰读者行为的地区性趋势？这个项目的中心是小说阅读和改进形式之间的关系，这种关系是后启蒙运动时代苏格兰文化和思维的内在特征。后启蒙运动时期--这里的定义是从1800年到1837年--构成了这部小说经典化和普及的关键阶段，最显著的标志是斯科特在19世纪中期进入文学舞台，随后印刷数量大幅增加，这部小说在苏格兰的订阅图书馆中兴起。虽然改进通常是十九世纪初小说的主题，但小说阅读行为在多大程度上被认为是“改进”的，这一点一直备受争议。例如，在布伦顿的《自我控制》(1811年)和费里尔的《继承》(1824年)中，阅读被呈现为一种催化行为，通过这种行为，个体读者可以培养和展示他们思想的开明状态。这种自我改进的行为参与了一个更大的过程，通过这个过程，这个国家本应“改进”。然而，它们与过度或不明智阅读的危险并存，特别是对妇女和下层读者而言。例如，高尔特反映了年轻女性在《需要》(1823)中阅读小说的危险--尽管是讽刺的。事实上，小说中经常讨论这种危险，表面上是出于说教的原因，让读者参与到关于阅读小说后果的元话语中。

To what extent and in what ways was the novel presented as an improving form of literature between the years 1800 and 1837?To what extent and in what ways are the effects of novel reading presented by Scottish novelists Mary Brunton, Susan Ferrier, John Galt, Elizabeth Hamilton, James Hogg, and Walter Scott reflected in the borrowing tendencies of contemporary readers?To what extent and in what ways do these tendencies reveal regional trends in post-Enlightenment Scottish readership behaviour? This project centres upon a relationship between novel reading and forms of improvement that was intrinsic to post-Enlightenment Scottish culture and thinking. The post-Enlightenment period - defined here as running from 1800 to 1837 - constituted a pivotal stage in the canonisation and popularisation of the novel, marked most notably by Scott's seismic entrance onto the literary scene during the mid-1810s, followed by a major expansion in print runs and the rise of the novel within subscription libraries in Scotland. Whilst improvement was often the subject of novels during the early nineteenth century, the extent to which the act of novel reading was considered 'improving' was much debated. In Brunton's Self-Control (1811) and Ferrier's The Inheritance (1824), for example, reading is presented as a catalytic act through which the individual reader might both cultivate and demonstrate the enlightened state of their mind. Such acts of self-improvement participated in a larger process by which the nation was supposed to 'improve'. However, they existed alongside the perceived dangers of excessive or injudicious reading, especially with regard to women and lower-class readers. Galt, for example, reflects - albeit satirically - upon the dangers of young women reading novels in The Entail (1823). Indeed, such dangers were often discussed within novels for ostensibly didactic reasons, engaging readers in a meta-discourse about the consequences of reading fiction.