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The relationship between what is described as the autumnal mood of Jane Austen's 'Persuasion' and the perceived critique of aristocratic authority in favor of a man of commerce are examined. The reversal of convention in the novel where it is the well-born female who looks towards a new kind of man is highlighted and the literary and cultural stakes of this reversal are discussed.

This article discusses Thomas Love Peacock's satiric view of eighteenth century commercialism. Topics include consumerism, consumption, literary criticism, authorial perspective, and modern social thought.

British voyage narratives in the 19th century centered around the concept of exchange, where apparent reciprocity attempted to disguise domination. Indigenous people often offered gifts to the officers and crew of British ships which traveled the Eastern Archipelago, yet the British saw themselves as belonging to a superior culture and race, precluding an exchange between equals. In addition to gifts, voyage narratives also depicted trade and theft, all three acting as a means for the British to define themselves in comparison to the native Others.

The Wife of Bath is Chaucer's satirization of the commercial class by linking it with crassness and bold greed. Throughout her and other pilgrims' prologue and tale, women are implicitly linked with commerce. She is the chief representative of the middle ranks absent from the traditional, tripartite view of medieval society - farmers, nobles, and the Church. All three of those institutions escape lightly from Chaucer's pointed pen, leaving the material class to take the brunt. Commerce is shameful in the same way the pudendum is, making the Wife of Bath an ideal representative of both.

Modern artists have a love-hate relationship with business. Painters like Charles Sheeler saw the beauty in the fearful symmetry of modern factory design, and many more artists have embraced the [...]