ABSTRACT

Making British Culture explores an under-appreciated factor in the emergence of a recognisably British culture. Specifically, it examines the experiences of English readers between around 1707 and 1830 as they grappled, in a variety of circumstances, with the great effusion of Scottish authorship – including the hard-edged intellectual achievements of David Hume, Adam Smith and William Robertson as well as the more accessible contributions of poets like Robert Burns and Walter Scott – that distinguished the age of the Enlightenment.

part I|20 pages

Problems

chapter 1|18 pages

A Question of Perspective

Scotland and England in the British Enlightenment

part II|85 pages

Contexts

chapter 2|25 pages

“The Self-Impanelled Jury of the English Court of Criticism”

Taste and the Making of the Canon

chapter 3|15 pages

“For Learning and for Arms Renown'd”

Scotland in the Public Mind

chapter 4|22 pages

“An Ample Fund of Amusement and Improvement”

Institutional Frameworks for Reading and Reception

chapter 5|21 pages

Readers and Their Books

Why, Where, and How Did Reading Happen?

part III|68 pages

Contingencies

chapter 6|25 pages

“One Longs to Say Something”

English Readers, Scottish Authors, and the Contested Text

chapter 7|20 pages

“Many Sketches & Scraps of Sentiments”

Commonplacing and the Art of Reading

chapter 8|21 pages

Copying and Co-Opting

Owning the Text

part IV|43 pages

Constructions

chapter 9|23 pages

Reading and Meaning

History, Travel and Political Economy

chapter 10|18 pages

Misreading and Misunderstanding

Encountering Natural Religion and Hume

part V|24 pages

Consequences

chapter 11|22 pages

The Making of British Culture

Reading Identities in the Social History of Ideas