Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preliminary Material / Rachael Langford and Russell West -- Acknowledgments / Rachael Langford and Russell West -- Contributors / Rachael Langford and Russell West -- Introduction: Diaries and Margins / Rachael Langford and Russell West -- Self-Exploration in Early Modern English Diaries / JüRgen Schlaeger -- The Exploitation of Subjectivity: Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year / Frank Lay -- Dissecting the Cannibal: Comparing the Function of the Autopsy Principle in the Diaries and Narratives of Captain Cook's Second Voyage / Vanessa Agnew -- Views from Beyond the Alps: An American in Turin: The Diary of Caroline Marsh, Wife of the First American Minister to Italy 1861-64 / Luisa Quartermaine -- In the Margins of the Private Diary: The Notes - Edmond and Jules de Goncourt's Notes sur l'Italie 1855-1856. / Jean-Pierre Guillerm -- Revolutionary Times: The Use of the Diary Form to Contest the French Third Republic in the Jacques Vingtras Trilogy by Jules Vallès / Rachael Langford -- Space and language in the private diary: Conrad's Congo Diaries -- The Diaries of Josep Pla: Reflections on the Personal Diary, Draft Diary and Elaborated Diary / Xavier Pla -- Contingent Selves and Necessary Fictions: Simone de Beauvoir's Use of the ‘Journal Intime' / Ursula Tidd -- From the Forgotten Everyday-Life of Tyranny: The Diaries of Victor Klemperer / Susanne Zur Nieden -- Saving the Child: The ‘Universalisation' of Anne Frank / Hanno Loewy -- The Practice of Personal Writing by Non-Writers: Memory, History and Writing / Anne Roche -- The Practice of the Private Journal: Chronicle of an Investigation (1986-1998) / Philippe Lejeune.

Diaristic writing has often been relegated to the fringes of literary studies as a marginal cultural activity. This volume seeks to challenge that marginality by exploring some of the wide-ranging forms of literary practice encompassed by diaristic writing in Europe from the Renaissance to the present day. The volume deals with questions of the value and status of the diary, of the functioning of the diary in society and history, and of the reception and interpretation of the multifarious forms of first-person daily writing. The volume investigates diaries across national borders and linguistic boundaries, so as to make the hitherto marginal place of the private journal a site of fruitful interdisciplinary encounters. Australian, British, Catalonian, French, German and Italian critics examine diaries dating from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, within the context of the literature, history and literary history of Catalonia, England, France, Germany and Italy. A prime concern of the essays in this collection is to highlight the cultural, generic and historical diversity of the diary, while emphasising the points of convergence between different texts and differing critical approaches to the texts. The volume will be of interest to students and teachers of European and comparative literature.

English

Description based on print version record.