The conversational circle
Subtitle: re-reading the English novel, 1740-1775
By: Betty A. Schellenberg.
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Lexington
Language: eng
Number of pages: 165
Subjects: English fiction -- 18th century -- History and criticism; Conversation in literature; Literature and society -- England -- History -- 18th century; Domestic fiction, English -- History and criticism; Oral communication in literature; Social interaction in literature; Friendship in literature; Speech in literature; Family in literature
Description: Twentieth-century historians of the early novel, most prominently Ian Watt, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Terry Castle, have canonized fictions that portray the individual in sustained tension with the social environment. Such fictions privilege a strongly linear structure. Recent reexaminations of the canon, however, have revealed a number of early novels that do not fit this mold.

In The Conversational Circle: Rereading the English Novel, 1740-1775, Betty Schellenberg identifies another kind of plot, one that focuses on the social group - the "conversational circle" - as a model that can affirm traditional values but just as often promotes an alternative sense of community. Schellenberg offers a model for exploring a range of novels that experiment with narrative patterns.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [137]-160) and index.