The Victorian Social-Problem Novel: The Market, the Individual and Communal Life

ISBN-13: 9780333628447 / Angielski / Miękka / 1996 / 256 str.

Josephine M. Guy

Opis

This book describes various accounts of the Victorian social-problem novel, examining their strengths and limitations in the light of the historiographical assumptions which underlie them. An alternative historical account is offered, which focuses on the novels' intellectual milieu - specifically on mid-Victorian concepts of 'the social' and of what was understood by the term 'social problem'. In detailed readings of individual works, the book argues that an appreciation of these concepts permits new ways of understanding the contradictions identified in these works together with their apparently 'conservative' politics.

Spis treści

Preface .- Acknowledgements .- PART 1: LITERATURE, HISTORY, VALUE .- Evaluating the Social-Problem .- Novel .- The Social-Problem Novel and Literary History .- PART 2: THE SOCIAL-PROBLEM NOVEL .- Society, .- the Social and the Individual .- Social Problems and Resolutions .- Conclusion: Social Cohesion versus .- Social Atomism .- Bibliography.-  Index.