A Companion to the Victorian Novel

A Companion to the Victorian Novel

Language: English

Pages: 528

ISBN: 1405132914

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


The Companion to the Victorian Novel provides contextual and critical information about the entire range of British fiction published between 1837 and 1901.

  • Provides contextual and critical information about the entire range of British fiction published during the Victorian period.
  • Explains issues such as Victorian religions, class structure, and Darwinism to those who are unfamiliar with them.
  • Comprises original, accessible chapters written by renowned and emerging scholars in the field of Victorian studies.
  • Ideal for students and researchers seeking up-to-the-minute coverage of contexts and trends, or as a starting point for a survey course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

emphasizing the individual as “an autonomous unit with powers of self-control” (1996: 28). In effect, we see both of these models in Holmes’s brainattic. While he conceptualizes the finite nature of mental space and the automatic forces responsible for jettisoning mental clutter, he simultaneously emphasizes the power of the disciplined individual to intervene in this process through the efficient organization of knowledge. Sherlock Holmes is not the only character in Victorian fiction to discuss

Monomania posited a form of partial insanity in which the afflicted subject could appear to be entirely normal and sane in all areas of behavior except one. It thereby blurred the distinction between sanity and insanity, making it possible for one to appear sane to all observers and yet harbor the capacity for irrational behavior. There are numerous instances of monomania (both explicit and implicit) in Victorian fiction, and fictional monomaniacs ranged in their behavior from mild eccentricity

European imperial powers, restlessness in the colonies of white settlement, and the founding in 1885 of the Indian National Congress (which led, eventually, to the dismantling of the British Raj) all contributed to a sense that the imperial century was coming to a close. Indeed, another global empire was in the making. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), a hearty Texan who has assisted in the elimination of that racialized monster, the Count, is praised by another character as follows: “If America

Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830–1914 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press). Bristow, Joseph (1991), Empire Boys: Adventures in a Man’s World (London: HarperCollins). Chaudhuri, Nupur and Strobel, Margaret, eds. (1992), Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance (Bloomington: Indiana University Press). David, Deirdre (1995), Rule Britannia: Women, Empire, and Victorian Writing (Ithaca: Cornell University Press). 100 Deirdre David Hyam, Ronald (1990),

part in wrestling to save her lost husband’s soul. Her resolve to return when she did is justified by her later conviction of his salvation, “the blessed confidence that, through whatever purging fires the erring spirit may be doomed to pass – whatever fate awaits it, still, it is not lost, and God, who hateth nothing that He hath made, will bless it in the end!” (Brontë 1992: 456). Spiritual crises are gendered in the Victorian novel; remaining true to her sacred marriage vows in the face of

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