Governing consumption
Subtitle: needs and wants, suspended characters, and the "Origins" of eighteenth-century English novels
By: James Cruise.
Series: The Bucknell studies in eighteenth-century literature and culture
Publisher: Bucknell University Press; Associated University Presses
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Lewisburg, [Pa.]; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 246
Subjects: English fiction -- 18th century -- History and criticism.; Capitalism and literature -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century.; Consumption (Economics) -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century.; Authors and readers -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century.; Books and reading -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century.; Narration (Rhetoric) -- History -- 18th century.; Characters and characteristics in literature.; Consumption (Economics) in literature.; Suspense in literature.; Marxist criticism.
Description: "Governing Consumption challenges anew the underlying assumptions made by Ian Watt and other, recent influential scholars about the origins of the eighteenth-century English novel. By examining archival materials, and developing a broad historical and critical discussion, James Cruise places the fiction of Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, and Sterne within the framework of consumer capitalism, the existing market for narrative fiction, and a developing culture of needs and wants.

He thereby argues that commercialization and the dynamic of its demand-based economy helped to shape the cultural processes by which the novel became a discursively rich, character-centered genre. Paradoxically, however, each of these "realistic" novelists, other than Sterne, failed in his attempt to erect character as a moral buffer against the suspense of a commerically driven world."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 214-238) and index.