Reading the Early Modern Diary traces the historical genealogy, the formal characteristics and the shifting cultural uses of the early modern English diary. It explores the possibilities and limitations the genre held for the self-expression of a writer, at a time which considerably pre-dated the Romantic cult of the individual self. The overarching aim of the book is to trace the connections between genre and self-articulation: How could the diary come to be associated with emotional self-expression from the eighteenth century onwards, when its early seventeenth century ancestors are dry and repetitive, mere lists of daily events rather than narrative representations of inner emotions? What did it mean to write on a daily basis, when the proper use of time was a heavily contested issue? Reading the Early Modern Diary addresses these questions and develops new theoretical frameworks for discussing interiority and affect in early modern autobiographical texts. | Reading The Early Modern English Diary by Miriam Nandi, Hardcover | Indigo Chapters