ABSTRACT

This collection explores how film and television depict the complex and diverse milieu of the eighteenth century as a literary, historical, and cultural space. Topics range from adaptations of Austen’s Sense and Sensibility and Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (The Martian) to historical fiction on the subjects of slavery (Belle), piracy (Crossbones and Black Sails), monarchy (The Madness of King George and The Libertine), print culture (Blackadder and National Treasure), and the role of women (Marie Antoinette, The Duchess, and Outlander). This interdisciplinary collection draws from film theory and literary theory to discuss how film and television allows for critical re-visioning as well as revising of the cultural concepts in literary and extra-literary writing about the historical period.

chapter |11 pages

Introduction

Representing and Repositioning the Eighteenth Century on Screen
BySrividhya Swaminathan, Steven W. Thomas

chapter 1|16 pages

Fashionable Failures

Ghosting Female Desires on the Big Screen
ByUla Lukszo Klein

chapter 2|16 pages

Portrait of the Queen as a Celebrity

Marie Antoinette on Screen, a Disappearing Act (1934–2012)
ByDorothée Polanz

chapter 3|14 pages

The King on the Screen 1

ByElizabeth Kraft

chapter 4|14 pages

“I have you in my eye, sir”

The Spectacle of Kingship in The Madness of King George
ByJennifer Preston Wilson

chapter 5|15 pages

Blackadder

Satirizing the Century of Satire
BySarah B. Stein, Robert Vork

chapter 7|15 pages

How to Be a Woman in the Highlands

A Feminist Portrayal of Scotland in Outlander
ByCourtney A. Hoffman

chapter 8|21 pages

The King of Mars

The Martian’s Scientific Empire and Robinson Crusoe
ByKyle Pivetti

chapter 9|15 pages

The New Cinematic Piracy

Crossbones and Black Sails
BySrividhya Swaminathan

chapter 10|16 pages

Sex, Sisterhood, and the Cinema

Sense and Sensibility(s) in Conversation
ByJodi L. Wyett

chapter 11|17 pages

Cinematic Slavery and the Romance of Belle

BySteven W. Thomas