Compendious Conversations

The abundance of information entering the discourse of both English and continental Enlightenments encouraged the exploration of new or the renovation of old genres and disciplines. Dialogue, the most flexible, responsive, and spontaneous of forms, became not only the preferred, but often the dominant method for the retention, evaluation, analysis, and communication of new worlds of knowledge and for the expunging of old worlds of error. The contributors to Compendious Conversations take advantage of the recent expansion of literary studies into vast catalogues of overlooked works, from dialogical contemplations of Socrates to midnight marital conversations, to consider the status of dialogue as both a literary mode and a philosophical method. They propose the most comprehensive study to date of the social, literary, and philosophical history of the form linking Shakespeare's declamation with Coleridge's table talk.