Ecological Form

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
George Eliot ◽  
Joseph Conrad ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Industrial Society ◽  
Victorian England ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Industrial Novel ◽  
Literary Forms ◽  
Joseph Dalton Hooker ◽  
Ecological Form

Victorian England was both the world’s first industrial society and its most powerful global empire. Ecological Form coordinates those facts to show how one version of the Anthropocene first emerged into visibility in the nineteenth century. Many of that era’s most sophisticated observers recognized that the systemic interconnections and global scale of both empire and ecology posed challenges best examined through aesthetic form. Using “ecological formalism” to open new dimensions to our understanding of the Age of Coal, contributors reconsider Victorian literary structures in light of environmental catastrophe; coordinate “natural” questions with social ones; and underscore the category of form—as built structure, internal organizing logic, and generic code—as a means for generating environmental and therefore political knowledge. Together these essays show how Victorian thinkers deployed an array of literary forms, from the elegy and the industrial novel to the utopian romance and the scientific treatise, to think interconnection at world scale. They also renovate our understanding of major writers like Thomas Hardy, George Eliot, John Ruskin, and Joseph Conrad, even while demonstrating the centrality of less celebrated figures, including Dinabandhu Mitra, Samuel Butler, and Joseph Dalton Hooker, to contemporary debates about the humanities and climate change. As the essays survey the circuits of dispossession linking Britain to the Atlantic World, Bengal, New Zealand, and elsewhere—and connecting the Victorian era to our own—they advance the most pressing argument of Ecological Form, which is that past thought can be a resource for reimagining the present.

scholarly journals The Concept of Victorianism in A. S. Byatt’s “Posession”

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Victorian Novel ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Victorian England ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
English Novel ◽  
The Past ◽  
Russian Literary ◽  
Postmodern Novel ◽  
Current Research Interest

The late 1990s – early 2000s was a time of numerous projects dedicated to the Victorian age and the Victorian novel as a specific phenomenon that inspires the modern novel development. The English postmodern novel with its typical narrative, time transferal to Victorian England, weaving of time layers, invokes current research interest. The relevance of this study is caused by considerable interest of researchers in the Victorian era heritage and by need of a comprehensive study of Victorian linguoculture and its implementation in the modern English novel. The Victorian text influences a new genre of the novel that reflects the gravity of modern English prose to the traditional literature of Victorian era, assumed to be particularly important in this context. The analysis of A. S. Byatt’s “Possession” in the Russian literary criticism was made only by O. A. Tolstykh; in the Ukrainian science, this work was investigated by O. Boynitska in the context of searching the past, so this subject is not investigated enough, and in our opinion is new and relevant, especially from the perspective of the “Victorian era” concept embodied in the novel. The aim of the paper is to analyze the “Victorian era” concept peculiarities in the intercultural context, on the basis of A. S. Byatt’s “Possession” as a Victorian novel. The paper takes into account the reproduction of concepts of Marriage, Home, Family, Freedom, Life, as components of “Victorian era.” The Victorian family is often represented through the place of their dwelling; therefore, the great Victorians’ works are overwhelmed by interior descriptions (Dombey’s house, Miss Havisham’s home, Mr. Rochester’s Castle). However, in “Possession,” there is an obvious contrast of Victorian buildings to the same structures in the XX century: the past prime – the modern decline. All the secrets and delusions hidden behind the facades of supposedly respectable buildings result in distorting facts and, to some extent, to violating the rights of ownership to the memories of the past. This gives another meaning to the title of the novel – “possession,” that is ownership, possession of letters, memory, truth.

Defaming and Defining ‘Bloody Mary’ in Nineteenth-Century England

2014 ◽  
Vol 90 (1) ◽  
pp. 287-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Richards
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
History Textbooks ◽  
Victorian England ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
John Foxe ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Catholic Faith ◽  
Papal Authority ◽  
Mary Tudor

Although the reputation of Englands first queen regnant, Mary Tudor (died 1558) had remained substantially unchanged in the intervening centuries, there were always some defenders of that Catholic queen among the historians of Victorian England. It is worth noting, however, that such revisionism made little if any impact on the schoolroom history textbooks, where Marys reputation remained much as John Foxe had defined it. Such anxiety as there was about attempts to restore something of Marys reputation were made more problematic by the increasing number and increasingly visible presence of a comprehensive Catholic hierarchy in the nineteenth century, and by high-profile converts to the Catholic faith and papal authority. The pre-eminent historians of the later Victorian era consistently remained more favourable to the reign of Elizabeth, seen as the destroyer,of an effective Catholic church in England.

“After all, anybody is as their land and air is … ”

2020 ◽  
pp. 37-69
Author(s):  
Vincent P. Pecora
Keyword(s):  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
George Eliot ◽  
Joseph Conrad ◽  
Gertrude Stein ◽  
To The Lighthouse ◽  
English Novel ◽  
Howards End ◽  
Tess Of The D'urbervilles ◽  
Between The Acts ◽  
Plumed Serpent

Both Robert Frost and Gertrude Stein confront the need for belonging with a certain American ambivalence, one that can also be found in the novelistic tradition, but their complicated attitudes toward the land of their birth puts the English attitude that we find in George Eliot in sharp relief. The English novel after George Eliot turns increasingly to what has been called questions of agro-romantic values. The chapter looks specifically at such values in Thomas Hardy (Tess of the d’Urbervilles); Joseph Conrad (Lord Jim); D. H. Lawrence (The Rainbow and The Plumed Serpent); E. M. Forster (Howards End and A Passage to India); and Virginia Woolf (To the Lighthouse and Between the Acts).

Fighting electoral corruption in the Victorian era: An overlooked dimension of John Stuart Mill’s political thought

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 415-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Selinger
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Action ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Political Commitment ◽  
Victorian England ◽  
Liberal Politics ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Electoral Corruption

For nearly half a century John Stuart Mill was a major critic of the forms of electoral corruption prevalent in Victorian England. Yet this political commitment has been largely overlooked by scholars. This article offers the first synoptic account of Mill’s writings against corruption. It argues that Mill’s opposition to corruption was not accidental or temperamental, but sprung from fundamental principles of his political thought. It also shows that Mill’s opposition to electoral corruption put him at odds with other leading liberal thinkers of his era, who thought that the existing ways in which wealth influenced elections had positive effects – or at the very least that they did not impede a healthy electoral contest from taking place. Mill’s fervent intent to eliminate corruption also distinguishes him from many liberal theorists today, who either do not write about electoral corruption, or consider it an issue to be managed and lived-with. Reflecting on Mill’s political thought alongside other liberal thinkers raises the question of whether liberal states can draw a definitive line between prevalent forms of corruption and legitimate modes of political action, and eliminate the former, or whether we must regard corruption as among the constitutive dilemmas of a liberal politics.

Naval Hagiography and the Victorian Hero

1980 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 381-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. I. Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Industrial Society ◽  
World War ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Specific Meaning ◽  
The One ◽  
First World ◽  
Hero Worship

The word hero cannot be defined simply. According to time and speaker, it can imply anything from the bravery of a moment to the courage and statesmanship of a lifetime. We do not enjoy the distinction in English which La Bruyère drew in French: to him un héros was a young, dauntless and venturesome man, one like Alexander; but against him had to be set the truly great man, the grand homme, the one with judgement, foresight, experience and considerable ability - a man like Caesar. As we shall see, hero can be used to describe both kinds of men. But if it has no very specific meaning, it is an important word for any study of the Victorian era - an era that for our purposes is taken to cover the years from the 1830s to the outbreak of the First World War. For the Victorians loved a hero, and the word often came to their lips. Carlyle, whose Heroes and hero-worship was first published in 1841, thought that a nation's whole history could be told in terms of its heroes, and he and Kingsley and Froude, to name three of the important literary figures of the age, regarded heroes as being vital to any society. They thought it particularly important that the new burgeoning industrial society should have heroes of its own, and that these should act as beacons and as examples. As Froude said in Representative men (1850), ‘the only education worth anything is the education of character, and we cannot educate a character unless we have some notion of what we would form’.

scholarly journals Depiction of Victorian Era in the Novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. p17
Author(s):  
Farhana Haque
Keyword(s):  
Charles Dickens ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Victorian England ◽  
Great Expectation ◽  
Great Expectations ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Class System ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
Middle Class Family

Charles Dickens’ Great Expectation actually did reflect the Victorian society and therefore the morality of that era’s people inside of the novel. Since we know that Victorian era basically present some features such as virtue, strength, thrift, manners, cleanliness, honesty and chastity. These are the morals that Victorian people used to hold with high esteem. In this novel Great Expectations, Dickens has created some Victorian characters whom we have seen both in good working way or not at all. But the protagonist named Pip was dynamic and he went through some several changes and dealt with different and significant moral issues. Somehow Pip left behind all the values he was raised with. Because Miss Havisham and Estella have corrupted Pip with rich life. Greed, beauty and arrogance were his ingredient of immoral life. The other characters like Joe and Biddy were static characters throughout the entire novel and became noticeable to be the manifestation of what we call as ideal Victorians. The main heroin of this novel was Estella with whom Pip thought he had some love connection. Hence, Estella has been presented as a good in the sense of potentiality and turned morally bad. Miss Havisham, who was basically a corrupt woman and she engraved the center of the novel. Great Expectations did disclose how was the situation of Victorian society through some important features such as higher class, corrupted judicial system between rural and urban England. Here in this novel, Dickens was concern about the education system in Victorian era where the lower class people get less opportunities of getting proper education. From the beginning to the end of this novel, Dickens explored some significant issues regarding higher and lower class system of Victorian society which did fluctuate from the greatest woeful criminal named Magwitch to the needy people of the swamp country, where Joe and Biddy were the symbol of that regime. After that we can proceed to the middle class family where Pumblechook was the person to represent that regime. Last but not the least Miss Havisham symbolized and bear flag of very rich and sophisticated Victorian woman who has represented the higher class society in the novel Great Expectations. Hence we can say Great Expectations has talked and displayed the class system of Victorian England and the characters of this novel therefore also did uphold the true reflection of Victorian era.

scholarly journals Mid-Victorian England and Female Emancipation: Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Saman Ali Mohammed
Keyword(s):  
Elizabeth Gaskell ◽  
Apparent Difference ◽  
Domestic Sphere ◽  
Victorian England ◽  
Economic Competition ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
North And South ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Class Distinction

One of the heated discussions of the Victorian era is female emancipation. In the heart of an industrial period when materialism, economic competition and public domain were dominated by men, women had the domestic sphere. The apparent difference between these two spheres was not tolerable for Elizabeth Gaskell and she critiqued it. Her novel North and South discusses the perceptions on women, the idea of industrialization, and class distinction in Victorian Era. Developing her main character Margaret Hale, Gaskell critiques her society and the mentality behind a perception of patriarchal and materialistic society. Gaskell develops her character on many different levels by giving her various roles especially in the industrial north. Valuing certain qualities women possess in the domestic level, Gaskell brings Margaret to the debates, businesses, factories, riots and public sphere of Milton. Gaskell presents the contemporary and Victorian readers with a different perception of women, their roles, and significance in the private and public spheres. 

Mental Disability in Victorian England: The Earlswood Asylum 1847–1901. By David Wright. [Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2001. xii, 244 and (Index) 10 pp. Hardback £40. ISBN 0–19–924639–4.]

2002 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 463-492
Author(s):  
M. A. Stein
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disability ◽  
Victorian England ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
National Network ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Mentally Disabled ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Drastic Increase ◽  
History Of

Under the auspices of the 1808 Asylums Act, twelve county asylums for the institutionalised care of “dangerous idiots and lunatics” were created from 1808 through 1834. The advent of the New Poor Law in that latter year, with its emphasis on economising costs through “relieving” the poor in Union workhouses, resulted in a drastic increase in the number of mentally disabled people under the care of the Poor Law Overseers. Subsequently (and partially in consequence) the Lunatics Act of 1845 directed that all “lunatics, idiots, or persons of unsound mind” be institutionalised in county asylums. The Earlswood Asylum (formerly the National Asylum for Idiots) was the premier establishment for the care of people with mental disabilities throughout the Victorian era, and the institution upon which a national network would be modelled. This book chronicles and examines the history of the Earlswood Asylum from 1847–1901.

George Eliot’s Feminine Assertion in Middlemarch

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (7) ◽  
pp. 540
Author(s):  
Liang Zhang ◽  
Lingqin Zeng
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Sexual Identity ◽  
George Eliot ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Individual Values ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Tentative Interpretation ◽  
Social Worth ◽  
The One ◽  
Living Circumstances

As a female writer, especially the one capable of winning a unique reputation among the male-dominated literary circle during the Victorian era, George Eliot was sensitive and much concerned for women’s living circumstances and difficulties in the community. The article aims to make a tentative interpretation on Eliot’s feminine perspectives by a closing reading of her representative novel, Middlemarch. The article concludes that George Eliot was not a feminist, and she herself might refuse to be entitled a feminist. Through analysis of her female images, it is clear that George Eliot never put man and woman on the two contradictory extremes, and she didn’t contend that women’s pursuit for social worth and individual values should be obtained at the loss of feminine qualities, such as to be a wife and mother. Thus, George Eliot is definitely not a feminist; instead, she is a female writer with advanced consciousness of women’s independence, social worth and individual values. Instead of emphasizing women’s sexual identity, Eliot puts priority on women’s social identity--- a human being equal to men. No matter a man or a woman, they should enjoy the same rights and undertake the same obligations. Just like herself, she succeeded in writing and didn’t give up her pursuit for love and marriage.

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