Victorian Renovations of the Novel: Narrative Annexes and the Boundaries of Representation

ISBN-13: 9780521583442 / Angielski / Twarda / 1997 / 258 str.

Professor Suzanne Keen

Opis

This study of narrative technique in Victorian novels introduces the concept of "narrative annexes" whereby unexpected characters, impermissible subjects and plot-changing events enter fictional worlds that otherwise exclude them, challenging Victorian cultural and literary norms. Original readings of novels by Charlotte Bronte, Dickens, Disraeli, Hardy, Kingsley, Trollope and Wells show these writers negotiating the boundaries of representation to reveal subjects (notably sexuality and social class) that contemporary critics sought to exclude from the realm of the novel.

Recenzje

"Keen's style is lucid and her prose is a pleasure to read. The readings of specific novels are attentive and sensitive..." Journal of English and Germanic Philology

Spis treści

1. Narrative annexes: altered spaces, altered modes; 2. Victorian critics, narrative annexes, and prescriptions for the novel; 3. Norms and narrow spaces: the gendering of limits on representation; 4. Narrative annexes, social mobility and class anxiety; 5. Older, deeper, further: narrative annexes and the extent of the condition of England; 6. Victorian annexes and modern form; Notes; Bibliography.