18th-Century – Worlds Imagined

A Postmodern Eighteenth-Century Novel: Jacques the Fatalist

We tend to think of experimentation with form and meta-narratives that call attention to their artificiality as the exclusive traits of postmodernism. But if we glance in the rearview mirror of history, we can sometimes find works from the past that also employ these same storytelling strategies. Joe Bray suggests that the eighteenth century isContinue reading “A Postmodern Eighteenth-Century Novel: Jacques the Fatalist”

Escaping the Dungeon: Addison on Imagination

“A good poet will give the reader a more lively idea of an army or a battle in a description, than if he actually saw them drawn up in squadrons and battalions, or engaged in the confusion of a fight. Our minds should be opened to great conceptions and inflamed with glorious sentiments by whatContinue reading “Escaping the Dungeon: Addison on Imagination”