Conflict and difference in nineteenth-century literature
By: edited by Dinah Birch and Mark Llewellyn.
Contributors: Birch, Dinah.; Llewellyn, Mark, 1979-
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 2010
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 257
ISBN-13: 9780230221550
Subjects: English literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Social conflict in literature; Culture conflict in literature; Difference (Philosophy) in literature; Social values in literature; Ideology in literature; Consensus (Social sciences) in literature; Literature and society -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century; Ideology and literature -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century; Great Britain -- Intellectual life -- 19th century
Description: "How should we understand Victorian cultural conflict? The Victorians were fiercely disputatious, divided between multiple views of the political, religious and social issues that motivated their changing aspirations. Such debates are a fundamental aspect of the literary culture of the period, and the essays in this collection propose new ways of understanding their significance. Ranging from detailed readings of key literary figures (Browning, Collins, Dickens, Eliot) to explorations of cross-period themes (the philosophical roots of conflict; dreams and psychology; consumption; imperialism and race) or specific literary movements or moments (Chartism; journalism; writing of the Afghan War; New Woman novels), they address diverse areas of intellectual inquiry about what mattered most to the Victorians. These essays speak collectively in arguing for a reinterpretation of literary and cultural conflict through a greater critical awareness of the productive analyses available within such debates over difference in the period. The aim is not to resolve conflicted cultural moments or movements, but to explore the slippages and instabilities which so fascinated, intrigued and inspired the Victorians themselves."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction / Dinah Birch and Mark Llewellyn; title: Argument as conflict: then and now / Helen Small; title: Ever a fighter: Browning's struggle with conflict / Herbert F. Tucker; title: Conflict and imperial communication: narrating the first Afghan war / Muireann O'Cinneide; title: Off-white Indians / Kate Flint; title: The interpretation of daydreams: reverie as site of conflict in early Victorian psychiatry / Natalie Ford; title: "If I am not grotesque I am nothing": Aubrey Beardsley and disabled identities in conflict / Alex Tankard; title: Negotiating the gentle-man: male nursing and class conflict in the 'high' Victorian period / Holly Furneaux; title: "Resolved in defiance of fool and of knave": chartism, children and conflict / Malcolm Chase; title: Conversing with monstrosities: evolutionary theory and the contemporary response to Wilkie Collins / Janice M. Allan; title: Dickens and the heritage industry: or, culture and the commodity / Juliet John; title: The king and who? dance, difference, and identity in Anna Leonowens and The king and I / Sharon Aronofsky Weltman; title: "The utmost intricacies of the soul's pathways": the significance of syntax in George Eliot's Felix Holt, the radical (1866) / Melissa Raines; title: Culture wars? Arnold's essays in criticism and the rise of journalism 1864-1895 / Laurel Brake; title: Shrieking sisters and bawling brothers: sibling rivalry in Sarah Grand and Mary Cholmondeley / Galia Ofek; title: After eternal punishment: 'fin de siècle' as literary eschatology / Matthew Bradley.