Moral Taste
Subtitle: Aesthetics, Subjectivity, and Social Power in the Nineteenth-Century Novel
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: March 17, 2007
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 544
ISBN-13: 9780802091383
Subjects: Novels, other prose & writers: 19th century; Literary Collections; Literature - Classics / Criticism; English; Literature: Classics; General; Literary Collections / General; American - General
Description: "Drawing on the theories of Pierre Bourdieu, Marjorie Garson discusses a number of Victorian texts that treat aesthetic refinement as an essential mark of proper middle-class subjectivity. She situates each text in its historical moment and considers it in the light of contemporary anxieties, providing insights into why certain ways of representing and endorsing tastefulness remained serviceable for many decades. In addition, this study demonstrates how the discourse of taste engenders a wider discourse about middle-class subjectivity and entitlement, national character, and racial identity in the period."--Jacket.