Number and Pattern in the Eighteenth-Century Novel - Defoe, Fielding, Smollett and Sterne (Hardcover)

Numerological patterning in literature, where structural details of a literary work are symbolically related to its meaning on the verbal level, was particularly common from the Middle Ages up to the seventeenth century. Originally published in 1973, the author breaks new ground in revealing that familiarity with this technique lived on into the eighteenth century, supplying the more artistically aware of the early British novelists with meaningful formal guidelines. An account is given of the origins and continuity of the numerological tradition in Western European - and particularly English - thought as it affected literary structure. The careful structural patterning in the novels of Defoe and in Fielding's Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones is examined in detail. Smollett, too, is shown to have been interested in exploring the possibilities of number and pattern, and the clear-cut numerological framework of Sterne's Tristram Shandy is revealed. This original and controversial study combines structural analysis with fresh interpretative insights, and draws parallels with painting, music and architecture. It also has an important bearing on the history of ideas in the first half of the eighteenth century.

General

Imprint:	Routledge
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Series:	Routledge Library Editions: 18th Century Literature
Release date:	2020
First published:	1973
Authors:	Douglas Brooks
Dimensions:	216 x 138 x 20mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	210
ISBN-13:	978-0-367-44396-2
Categories:	Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Literary theory Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Literary studies > 16th to 18th centuries Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Novels, other prose & writers > General Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies > History of ideas, intellectual history
LSN:	0-367-44396-1
Barcode:	9780367443962

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