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Mascuch, Michael

The Origins of the Individualist Self: Autobiography and Self-Identity in England, 1591 - 1791

Mascuch, Michael - The Origins of the Individualist Self: Autobiography and Self-Identity in England, 1591 - 1791, ebook

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ISBN: 9780745667737
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This book traces the emergence of the concept of self-identity in modern Western culture, as it was both reflected in and advanced by the development of autobiographical practice in early modern England. It offers a fresh and illuminating appraisal of the nature of autobiographical narrative in general and of the early modern forms of biography, diary and autobiography in particular. The result is a significant and original contribution to the history of individualism.

Michael Mascuch argues that the definitive characteristic of individualist self-identity is the personal capacity to produce a unified retrospective autobiographical narrative, and he stresses that this capacity was first demonstrated in England during the last decade of the eighteenth century. He examines the long-term process of innovation in written discourse leading up to this event, from the first use of blank almanacs and common place books by the pious in the late sixteenth century, through the popular criminal biographies of the late seventeenth century, to the printed-for-the-author scandalous memoirs of the mid-eighteenth century.

While offering a detailed account of a significant period in the rise of a modern literary genre, Origins of the Individualist Self also addresses topics which are central in the fields of literary and cultural theory and social and cultural history.

Keywords: western; selfidentity; emergence; modern; book; culture; concept; development; autobiographical; practice; reflected; england; nature; appraisal; general; narrative; illuminating; particular; original; individualism; result

Author(s)
Publisher
John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
Publication year
1997
Language
en
Edition
1
Page amount
288 pages
Category
History
Format
Ebook
eISBN (ePUB)
9780745667737
Printed ISBN
9780745608747

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