This guide steers students through significant critical responses to the Victorian novel from the end of the nineteenth century to the present day.
Acknowledgements xv
Textual Note xix
Introduction 1
1. Early Criticism of the Victorian Novel from James Oliphant to David Cecil 17
The State of the Novel in 1900.
University Study of Victorian Literature.
Principles of Literary History.
The Approach of George Saintsbury.
Extract from Saintsbury'sThe English Novel (1913).
E.M. Forster and Critiquing Literary History.
The Modernist Construction of Victorian Fiction.
David Cecil's View of Victorian Novels and Culture.
Extract from Cecil'sEarly Victorian Novelists (1934).
Further Reading.
2. F.R. Leavis andThe Great Tradition 46
Outline of the Chapter.
Leavis's Influence.
The Principles of Leavis' Criticism.
The Idea of Tradition.
1980s' Reactions to the Politics of Leavis' Criticism.
The Principles of Leavis'The Great Tradition (1948).
Its Treatment of Dickens and Leavis' Later Views on Him.
Extract fromThe Great Tradition.
Further Reading.
3. Feminism and the Victorian Novel in the 1970s 66
The Influence of 1970s' Feminism.
Outline of the Chapter.
Ellen Moers'Literary Women (1976).
Elaine Showalter and the Female Tradition.
Discussion of Showalter'sA Literature of Their Own (1977).
1980s' Response to Showalter.
Extract fromA Literature of Their Own.
Significance of Gilbert and Gubar'sThe Madwoman in the Attic (1979).
The Madwoman
Discussed.
Gilbertand Gubar's Appraisal ofThe Madwoman.
Extract fromThe Madwoman.
Further Reading.
4. Realism 94
Preliminary Questions.
Outline of the Chapter.
Histories of Realism.
Ian Watt'sThe Rise of the Novel (1957) Discussed.
The Cartesian Certainties of Realism.
Watt Critiqued.
Alternative Histories of Realism.
Epistemology of Realism.
Ioan Williams and Realism's Certainties.
George Levine's View of Realism and Self-Consciousness.
Extract from Levine'sThe Realist Imagination (1981).
Psychological Coherence in Realism: Bersani'sA Future for Astyanax (1976).
Politics of Classic Realism and Coherence Criticized in 1980s.
Extract from Belsey'sCritical Practice (1980).
Belsey Critiqued.
D.A. Miller'sThe Novel and the Police (1988) Discussed.
The Turn Against Realism in the 1980s.
Interest in Gothic.
Interest in the not-Said of Realism.
The Feminist Recuperation of Realism in 1980s.
Extract from Boumehla's 'Realism and the Ends of Feminism' (1988).
New Historicism and Historicizing the Real.
Rothfield'sVital Signs (1992).
Nancy Armstrong and Kate Flint.
Conclusion.
Further Reading.
5. Social-Problem Fiction: Historicism and Feminism 149
What is Social-Problem Fiction?
Outline of the First Part of Chapter.
Cazamian's Reading in 1903.
The Significance of Raymond Williams.
Williams's 'Structures of Feeling'.
Williams's Criticisms of Social-Problem Fiction.
The Knowable Community in Williams'sThe English Novel (1970).
Extract fromThe English Novel.
Williams's Generalizations.
Sheila Smith's Particularization of Williams.
More Problems Found in Social-Problem Fiction.
Brantlinger's Historicization: a Context for Social-Problem Fiction.
New Historicism: Further Contexts.
Context 2. Gallagher and the Discourse over Industrialism.
Context 3. Mary Poovey and the Social Body.
Extract from Mary Poovey'sMaking a Social Body (1995).
Criticisms of New Historicism.
Guy and Individualism in the Victorian Mind.
Extract from Guy'sThe Victorian Social-Problem Novel (1996).
Feminism and the Social-Problem Novel.
Outline of Second Part of Chapter.
Recent Work on Elizabeth Gaskell.
Bergmann's Views on Strong Female Characters.
Kestner's Canon Revision.
Nord, Female Novelists, and Transgression.
Harman, Female Novelists, and Transformation.
The Future of Social-Problem Fiction Criticism.
Further Reading.
6. Language and Form 196
Outline of the Chapter.
Language and The Victorian Novel.
General Linguistic Studies of the Novel.
Language of Individual Victorian Novelists.
Chapman'sForms of Speech (1994).
Relation of Arguments to Thinking about Realism.
Other Documentary Work on Victorian Language.
Bakhtin and Language Studies.
Ingham's Views on Gender and Class.
Extract from InghamThe Language of Gender and Class (1996).
Bakhtin and Literature Studies.
Form and The Victorian Novel.
Henry James on Monster Novels.
Van Ghent's Reaction and Emphasis on Unity.
Extract from Van GhentThe English Novel (1953).
Barbara Hardy's Reaction: the Advantages of Fluidity in Form.
Hillis Miller and Form without God.
Deconstruction and Incoherence.
Garrett's Deconstructionist Views of Multiplot Fiction.
Extract from Garrett'sThe Victorian Multiplot Novel (1980).
Keen and Narrative Annexes.
Approaches to Form in 1980s and 90s Summarized.
Further Reading (Including Narratology).
7. Science and the Victorian Novel 230
Outline of the Chapter.
Early Approaches to Field.
Stevenson'sDarwin Among the Poets (1932) Discussed.
Henkin'sDarwinism in the English Novel (1940) Discussed.
Cosslett's Work on Overlaps of Science and Literature.
Beer on Darwin and Fiction.
Extract from Beer'sDarwin's Plots (1983).
Science and Literature Read Alongside Each Other.
Levine's Study of Novelists Who Did Not Read Science.
Levine's Influential Concept of the One Culture.
Extract from Levine'sDarwin and the Novelists (1988).
Dickens and Science.
1990s' Interest in Pathology and Mind Sciences.
Helen Small and Love's Madness.
Small's Critique of the One Culture Model.
Sally Shuttleworth on Psychology.
Logan on Hysteria, Wood on Neurology.
Eugenics and the Novel.
Further Reading.
8. The History of the Book 261
Diversity of History of the Book Studies.
Outline of the Chapter.
Bibliographical Work of Relevance to Victorian Fiction.
Butt and Tillotson and the Material Conditions of Authorship.
Altick and the Reader.
The Three-Volume Novel and Its Problems.
Extract from Sutherland'sVictorian Novelists and Publishers (1976).
Feltes and Marxist Readings of Production and Authorship.
Feminist Revision of Sutherland Publishing History.
Working-Class Fiction Recovered.
1990's Emphasis on the Reader.
Flint and the Woman Reader.
Gender and the Marketplace.
Catherine Judd's 'Male Pseudonyms and Female.'.
Authority in Victorian England' (1995).
Further Reading.
9. Postcolonial Readings 306
Range and Diversity of Postcolonialism.
Central Interests of Postcolonialism.
Outline of the Chapter.
Early Views of Victorian Fiction and Empire.
Said'sOrientalism (1978) and Its Consequences for Fiction.
Spivak's Critique of Feminism.
The Embeddedness of Fiction in Colonial Ideology.
Extract from Spivak 'Three Women's Texts and Critique of Imperialism'.
Brantlinger'sRule of Darkness (1988) and Explicit Engagements with Empire.
Bivona and the Hidden Presence of Empire.
Perera and Colonial Anxieties.
Sharpe and Fiction's Collusion with Ideology.
Richards and the Imperial Archive.
Azim and the Imperial Form of Fiction.
Extract from Azim'sThe Colonial Rise of the Novel (1993).
Deirdre David, Women, and the Empire.
Meyer and Fiction's Double Relationship with Colonial Ideology.
Extract fromImperialism at Home (1996).
Further Reading 332
Index 335
