Wisps of violence
Subtitle: producing public and private politics in the turn-of-the-century British novel
By: Eileen Sypher.
Publisher: Verso
Published: 1993
Place of publication: London; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 193
Subjects: English fiction -- 19th century -- History and criticism.; Politics and literature -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century.; Feminism and literature -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century.; Women and literature -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century.; English fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism.; Political fiction, English -- History and criticism.; Public opinion in literature.; Sex role in literature.; Violence in literature.; Privacy in literature.
Description: Eric Hobsbawm has characterized the period from 1880 to 1914 as 'years when wisps of violence hung in the English air', years in which increasingly militant socialists, anarchists and feminists seriously threatened the peace. Curiously, however, few novels of the period openly acknowledged this threat, whether to welcome or criticize it, and those which did under-represent the public political sphere. By juxtaposing both well-known and lesser-known novels - such as Henry James' Princess Casamassima, Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent, George Bernard Shaw's An Unsocial Socialist, and Gertrude Dix's The Image Breakers - and using the insights of feminist and Machereyan literary theory, Sypher interprets the image of turn-of-the-century politics produced by fiction. Wisps of Violence argues that this fiction tried to contain the threat of the new politics and the nascent collapse of distinct public and private spheres, by attempting to reinvent a separate, domestic sphere presided over by 'woman'. Though few of these novels are 'feminist' texts, they nevertheless suggest as a whole the subtle yet far-reaching extent of this period's social instability, particularly in the area of gender relations.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 181-185) and index.