Victorian Novel - A Guide to Criticism

Informationen zum Autor Francis O'Gorman is Lecturer in Victorian Literature in the School of English at the University of Leeds. He has written widely on the Victorian period, including the books John Ruskin (1999) and Late Ruskin: New Contexts (2001), and co-edited collections on Margaret Oliphant (1999), Ruskin and Gender (2002), and The Victorians and the Eighteenth Century Reassessing the Tradition (2003). He has also written articles and book chapters on Ruskin, Tyndall, Robert Browning, Tennyson, Michael Field, and Victorian masculinities. He is currently working on an annotated anthology of Victorian poetry (Blackwell, forthcoming), and writing more on Ruskin. Klappentext This guide looks at how the Victorian novel has been read over the past hundred years. Unlike other critical guides, it not only provides students with examples of significant strands of criticism, but also helps them to make sense of these articles and extracts by means of a narrative and critical framework. The novelists referred to are the acknowledged great names of Victorian fiction, including the Brontë sisters, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Anthony Trollope. A short opening section describing and representing early critical responses is complemented by a longer second section looking at current themes in criticism, such as genre, gender, politics, science, language, the canon, and modes of production. The volume as a whole enhances students' critical repertoire, encourages them to recognise the situatedness of all criticism, and helps them to engage with critical debates about the Victorian novel. Zusammenfassung * Presents the most influential and significant critical writing on Victorian fiction. * Offers students careful guidance through the critical literature by means of a narrative framework. * Encourages students to engage with critical debates about Victorian literature. Inhaltsverzeichnis 8051832 ...

List of contents

Acknowledgements xv
Textual Note xix

Introduction 1

1. Early Criticism of the Victorian Novel from James Oliphant to David Cecil 17

The State of the Novel in 1900.

University Study of Victorian Literature.

Principles of Literary History.

The Approach of George Saintsbury.

Extract from Saintsbury s The English Novel (1913).

E.M. Forster and Critiquing Literary History.

The Modernist Construction of Victorian Fiction.

David Cecil s View of Victorian Novels and Culture.

Extract from Cecil s Early Victorian Novelists (1934).

Further Reading.

2. F.R. Leavis and The Great Tradition 46

Outline of the Chapter.

Leavis s Influence.

The Principles of Leavis Criticism.

The Idea of Tradition.

1980s Reactions to the Politics of Leavis Criticism.

The Principles of Leavis The Great Tradition (1948).

Its Treatment of Dickens and Leavis Later Views on Him.

Extract from The Great Tradition.

Further Reading.

3. Feminism and the Victorian Novel in the 1970s 66

The Influence of 1970s Feminism.

Outline of the Chapter.

Ellen Moers Literary Women (1976).

Elaine Showalter and the Female Tradition.

Discussion of Showalter s A Literature of Their Own (1977).

1980s Response to Showalter.

Extract from A Literature of Their Own.

Significance of Gilbert and Gubar s The Madwoman in the Attic (1979) .

The Madwoman

Discussed.

Gilbertand Gubar s Appraisal of The Madwoman.

Extract from The Madwoman.

Further Reading.

4. Realism 94

Preliminary Questions.

Outline of the Chapter.

Histories of Realism.

Ian Watt s The Rise of the Novel (1957) Discussed.

The Cartesian Certainties of Realism.

Watt Critiqued.

Alternative Histories of Realism.

Epistemology of Realism.

Ioan Williams and Realism s Certainties.

George Levine s View of Realism and Self-Consciousness.

Extract from Levine s The Realist Imagination (1981).

Psychological Coherence in Realism: Bersani s A Future for Astyanax (1976).

Politics of Classic Realism and Coherence Criticized in 1980s.

Extract from Belsey s Critical Practice (1980).

Belsey Critiqued.

D.A. Miller s The Novel and the Police (1988) Discussed.

The Turn Against Realism in the 1980s.

Interest in Gothic.

Interest in the not-Said of Realism.

The Feminist Recuperation of Realism in 1980s.

Extract from Boumehla s Realism and the Ends of Feminism (1988).

New Historicism and Historicizing the Real.

Rothfield s Vital Signs (1992).

Nancy Armstrong and Kate Flint.

Conclusion.

Further Reading.

5. Social-Problem Fiction: Historicism and Feminism 149

What is Social-Problem Fiction?

Outline of the First Part of Chapter.

Cazamian s Reading in 1903.

The Significance of Raymond Williams.

Williams s Structures of Feeling .

Williams s Criticisms of Social-Problem Fiction.

The Knowable Community in Williams s The English Novel (1970).

Extract from The English Novel.

Williams s Generalizations.

Sheila Smith s Particularization of Williams.

More Problems Found in Social-Problem Fiction.

Brantlinger s Historicization: a Context for Social-Problem Fiction.

New Historicism: Further Contexts.

Context 2. Gallagher and the Discourse over Industrialism.

Context 3. Mary Poovey and the Social Body.

Extract from Mary Poovey s Making a Social Body (1995).

Criticisms of New Historicism.

Guy and Individualism in the Victorian Mind.

Extract from Guy s The Victorian Social-Problem Novel (1996).

Feminism and the Social-Problem Novel.

Outline of Second Part of Chapter.

Recent Work on Elizabeth Gaskell.

Bergmann s Views on Strong Female Characters.

Kestner s Canon Revision.

Nord, Female Novelists, and Transgression.

Harman, Female Novelists, and Transformation.

The Future of Social-Problem Fiction Criticism.

Further Reading.

6. Language and Form 196

Outline of the Chapter.

Language and The Victorian No

Report

"O Gorman functions as more author than editor in this second volume in the "Blackwell Guides to Criticism" series, providing a lucid, readable narrative accessible to the non-specialist.[...] In its definition and summary of current critical theories, the book will prove useful to all students of literature, not just those interested in the Victorian period. Highly recommended for all collections." Choice

"this will be a useful companion to any English or History course whatever the level of study and will provide a concise and clear critique that can be applied to any Victorian novel." Reference Reviews

"It is the kind of book you come back to, repeatedly consult, and would find absorbing whether or not you were an academic teacher. It is likely to serve for a long time as a fruitful reminder of how the practice of literary criticism has permanently changed the way we enjoy the old-fashioned narrative pleasures of the Victorian novel." The Brown Book

Product details

• Authors: &apos, Francis gorman, O Gorman, O&apos, O. Gorman, O'Gorman, Francis O'Gorman, F O''gorman, Francis O''''gorman, Francis (University of Leeds) O''''gorman
• Assisted by: Francis O'Gorman (Editor), Francis (University of Leeds) O'Gorman (Editor)
• Publisher: Wiley, John and Sons Ltd
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 05.07.2002
• EAN: 9780631227045
• ISBN: 978-0-631-22704-5
• No. of pages: 368
• Series: Blackwell Guides to Criticism; Blackwell Guides to Criticism
• Subject: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies