The Portmanteau Papers
Abstract
The Portmanteau Papers is a creative exploration, in novel form, of the social environments, narrative structures, and language that attend the so-called rise of the novel of the eighteenth century. This long-form fiction begins with the prints of William Hogarth, which it investigates as a visual analogue to the narrative patterns employed by period authors. By rereading and recreating selected elements of narrative implicit in Hogarth’s prints, the text of The Portmanteau Papers animates the tensions between modern and period prose forms. In doing so, the novel considers scholarship’s understanding of the on-going relationship between the contemporary novel and its eighteenth-century antecedents. Ultimately, the work argues for a theory of genre that includes the implications of artistic practice in addition to more usual formal or historical-cultural definitions. The story of The Portmanteau Papers explores the varied social and material contexts of eighteenth-century print culture, animating the range of contributions made by printers, booksellers, visual artists, authors, and readers. The Portmanteau Papers also creatively represents the contributions of women authors, especially novelist Sarah Scott, to the development of the novel, extending significant research done in this area over the last thirty years.
Description
Keywords
Literature--Canadian (English), Literature--English
Citation
Bryan, D. M. (2016). The Portmanteau Papers (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/28277