The conflicting discourses of the drawing-room
Subtitle: Anthony Trollope and Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
By: Elissa Heil.
Series: Studies in nineteenth-century British literature ;; v. 7
Publisher: Peter Lang; Lang AG International Academic Publishers, Peter
Published: 1997
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 204
Subjects: Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882; Goncourt, Edmond de, 1822-1896; Goncourt, Jules de, 1830-1870 -- Political and social views; Literature and society -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century; Literature and society -- France -- History -- 19th century; Narration (Rhetoric) -- History -- 19th century; Literature, Comparative -- English and French; Literature, Comparative -- French and English; Discourse analysis, Literary; Conversation in literature; Middle class in literature; Dialogue
Description: Focusing on the social discourses in Anthony Trollope's Barchester Towers and Edmond and Jules de Goncourt's Renee Mauperin, particularly the dialogic exchanges of the drawing-room, this study offers significant insights into the usefulness of Bakhtinian theory. It reveals how the various levels of discourse operate in the texts and, consequently, how they relate to their social contexts determined by well-defined gender demarcations within the bourgeois ideological paradigm. The drawing-room of the nineteenth century provides a lively forum for society to voice its ideals and expectations.

This study examines those ideals and their limitations, the social discourses of the texts as they operate in the chronotope of the drawing-room, and the extent to which these narratives undermine social expectations.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [191]-199) and index.