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1 results

  • Chapter 9 - Memories and Memorials

  • from Part II - Literary Context
  • Edited by Albert J. Rivero, Marquette University, Wisconsin, George Justice, University of Tulsa
  • Book:
    Daniel Defoe in Context
    Published online:
    27 April 2023
    Print publication:
    11 May 2023, pp 70-77

  • Summary

    A Journal of the Plague Year defeats any attempt at generic classification. It is a scientific survey of the plague’s possible physical causes but it includes considerations of the plague’s allegorical significance; the story interweaves the prose forms of history, journalism and anecdote with governmental proclamations and astrological predictions; and the main narrative constitutes a fictional memoir, spiced with eyewitness narrative and logical argument, documents, religious adjuration, and practical advice. Throughout, the perspective of a frightened but acute observer lends it a remarkable verisimilitude that challenges modern readers to expand their idea of what a novel actually does – or is. This chapter maps Defoe’s remarkable generic mixture in a gripping story both ’Publick’ and ’Private’ that is still relevant today.