Title: The professional ideal and the Victorian novel
First published: 2007
Description: "This book makes the claim that Victorian novels do not simply reflect professional ideology; they also scrutinize its dilemmas, contradictions, and limitations. In this volume, innovative readings of canonical texts like Sybil, Barchester Towers, Romola, and Daniel Deronda accompany work on less familiar texts like Tancred and My Lady Ludlow to illuminate the Victorians' own engagement with fundamental ideas of professional identity - such as autonomy, meritocracy, and the service ethic - reveal professionalism's dual basis in materialist and idealist rationalities."--BOOK JACKET.
Subjects: Idealism in literature, Professions in literature, History and criticism, English fiction, Trollope, anthony, 1815-1882, Gaskell, elizabeth cleghorn, 1810-1865, Eliot, george, 1819-1880, English fiction, history and criticism, 19th century, Disraeli, benjamin, earl of beaconsfield, 1804-1881, English literature, Themes, motives
Time periods: 19th century