Date of Award
1-1-2015
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Comparative Literature
First Advisor
Manushag N Powell
Committee Member 1
Nicole J Horejsi
Committee Member 2
Geraldine S Friedman
Committee Member 3
Christopher Lukasik
Abstract
This project traces the emergence of the spy in the literature of the eighteenth century, arguing for spying's ideological transition within the cultural and literary imagination from a profession to a way of being. At stake in "The Secret History of the English Spy: 1674-1800" is the idea that surveillance, spying, and state secrecy inform and meaningfully intersect with eighteenth century narrative fiction. Through analysis of a variety of surveillance fictions, including spy narratives, financial tell-alls, periodicals, amatory secret histories, and domestic and Gothic fictions, I incorporate the idea of surveillance into eighteenth-century literary history in order to more thoroughly understand how the genre speaks back to eighteenth-century conceptions of gender, class, and selfhood.
Recommended Citation
Ross, Slaney Chadwick, "The Secret History of the English Spy: 1674-1800" (2015). Open Access Dissertations. 1494.
https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/open_access_dissertations/1494