Temporality in early nineteenth-century Christmas writing

Abstract

This thesis analyses the representation of time in Christmas writing published during the first half of the nineteenth century. At a time when the experience of temporality began to shift dramatically due to the innovations of the industrial revolution, Christmas was also becoming a cherished annual moment for the British public. This thesis argues that the festive literature which appeared between 1819-1857 uses Christmas as a temporal milestone; a vantage point from where the reader is encouraged to survey and contemplate time past, present and yet to come. Beginning by establishing the centrality of Christmas as a national reading event, each subsequent chapter examines a different Christmas text, or group of Christmas texts, in order to highlight precisely how the perplexing issue of temporality was being articulated in print each December.