CALL FOR PAPERS FOR THE INTERNATIONAL SÉAA XVII-XVIII CONFERENCE
(SOCIÉTÉ D’ÉTUDES ANGLO-AMÉRICAINES DES XVIIe ET XVIIIe SIÈCLES)

Maison de la recherche de l’Université Sorbonne Nouvelle
4 rue des Irlandais
75005 PARIS

16-17 January 2015

“Aurea mediocritas”? the middling sort of people in the modern English-speaking world.

Whether in biblical or ancient sources, there were many reasons to celebrate the middling station in life. Horace’s Ode (2, 10) celebrating aurea mediocritas or Agur’s prayer to the Lord that He might give him neither poverty nor riches (Prov. 30:8-9) both point at the dangers of belonging to the highest or lower orders of society. After the 2013 conference on Measure and Excess, this 2014 gathering will offer a chance to focus more closely on the definitions and representations of those who were in between the landed elite and the dependent poor.
In “Class by Name and Number in Eighteenth-Century England” Penelope Corfield argues that the modern period was marked by deep alterations to the vision of society: from the medieval Great Chain of Beings where all were to keep their assigned place to a more dynamic organisation in which evolution was possible. A common feature of this middling sort of people is that they were able to support themselves by their own exertions. Christopher Hill addresses them in Society in Puritanism in Pre-Revolutionary England as “the industrious sort of people”. Despite the already large amount of attention that has been devoted to them, more could still be unveiled to refine their identification both at the national and at the more local levels, in England/Britain and in the growing settlements abroad, especially in North America. From William Bradford (“Social Organisation of Property and Economics at Plymouth”, 1623) to Crèvecoeur (“What is an American?” Letter 3, 1782), the idealised American was shown as an independent farmer who could rely on his labour and property to claim that America formed a society of equals. Many Dissenting British utopists also organised their ideal societies around a unique middle class made up of equally industrious people sharing the responsibility for their continued happiness. According to this vision, the middling sort of people did embody the golden mean. Yet to others, they were more of a gilded than a golden mean and the alleged virtues of this class were the targets of many a satire.
On both sides of the Atlantic literature addressed this readership, especially in the newly-born genre of the novel. The evolution of the language and codes used in literature can prompt interesting reflection: Robinson Crusoe is the middle son of his family and displays both the faults and qualities of the middling sort of people as he refuses to abide by paternal law and proves himself able to import civilisation on his desert island. As authors themselves, the industrious depicted their own lives in their own words and Puritan diaries as well as early novels reflected their concerns and their appropriation of language for artistic purposes. Yet, both literature and other arts voiced concerns, often in satires, over the ambitions of this class that seemed to threaten traditional values, including artistic ones. The representation of these characters as well as of their geographic and urban environments opens vast possibilities of investigation for scholars.
Papers will address the numerous ways in which the golden – or gilded – mean was represented or represented themselves in the modern English-speaking world. As they seemed to be a ubiquitous source of interest, all fields of English studies can be explored to unveil more about their social, cultural, religious and artistic aspirations, as well as about the means that were used to celebrate or deride them in the literature, painting or music of the times.

Proposals, plus a selective bibliography and bio-bibliographical CV, may be simultaneously submitted to:

Alexandra SIPPEL. Contact: alexandra.sippel@univ-tlse2.fr

Guyonne LEDUC. Contact: presidence@1718.fr

Pierre DEGOTT. Contact: secretariat@1718.fr

Deadline for abstract submission: 25 April 2014

Decision of the scientific committee: 30 June 2014