The 18th Century Today

Literature and Media from Beauty and the Beast to Bridgerton

Exploring how 18th-century forms and narrative are taken-up, recycled and re-visioned in contemporary media, this book asks which histories are told and by whom. Through essays from international and multidisciplinary scholars and interviews with industry professionals from curators and historians to actors, authors and producers, The 18th Century Now asks what function modern media performs when depicting the 18th century in our current world. Can such works speak to perceived eighteenth-century ideas and values and, simultaneously, the shifting paradigms of our own time? How, and why, should we engage?

Highlighting how contemporary depictions of the past give marginalised lives greater visibility, the role genre plays in re-enacting or re-interpreting 18th-century culture, and the potential for modern adaptation to transmute and transcend historical suffering, the essays in this volume dig into adaption across theatre, film, fiction, television and games. Covering works such as The Great, Bright Star, Harlots, Belle, Kind Words, Bridgerton, The Revolutionists, Beauty and the Beast and Black Sails among many others, this book is both reflection and celebration, an acknowledgement of the 18th century’s momentous crimes alongside a sense of contemporary culture’s capacity for transformation, renewal and justice.

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