Eighteenth-Century Fiction and the Reinvention of Wonder
Sarah Tindal Kareem
Oxford University Press
A footprint materializes mysteriously on a deserted shore; a giant helmet falls from the sky; a traveler awakens to find his horse dangling from a church steeple. Eighteenth-century British fiction brims with moments such as these, in which the prosaic rubs up against the marvelous. While it is a truism that the period's literature is distinguished by its realism and air of probability, <em>Eighteenth-Century Fiction and the Reinvention of Wonder</em> argues that wonder is integral to--rather than antithetical to--the developing techniques of novelistic fiction. Positioning its reader on the cusp between recognition and estrangement, between faith and doubt, modern fiction hinges upon wonder. <br><br><em>Eighteenth-Century Fiction and the Reinvention of Wonder'</em>s chapters unfold its new account of British fiction's rise through surprising new readings of classic early novels-from Daniel Defoe's <em>Robinson Crusoe</em> to Jane Austen's <em>Northanger Abbey</em>--as well as bringing to attention lesser known works, most notably Rudolf Raspe's <em>Baron Munchausen's Narrative of His Marvellous Travels</em>. In this bold new account, the eighteenth century bears witness not to the world's disenchantment but rather to wonder's re-location from the supernatural realm to the empirical world, providing a re-evaluation not only of how we look back at the Enlightenment, but also of how we read today.