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Tragedy in the Victorian Novel

Tragedy in the Victorian Novel

Tragedy in the Victorian Novel

Theory and Practice in the Novels of George Eliot, Thomas Hardy and Henry James
Jeannette King
February 1980
Available
Paperback
9780521297448
$53.00
USD
Paperback
Hardback

    How does one dominant literary genre fall into decline, to be superseded by another? The classic instance is the rise of the novel in the nineteenth century, and how it came to embody the tragic vision of life which had previously been the domain of drama. Dr King focuses on three novelists, George Eliot. Thomas Hardy and Henry James. All three, while trying to offer a realistic picture of life in prose narrative, wrote with the concept of tragedy clearly in mind. The concern was widespread, and Victorian literary critics found themselves discussing the problem of how one might reconcile concepts as dissimilar as tragedy and realism. Their criticism provides Dr King with her starting point. Dr King examines the work of her three authors in relation to the large concepts of traditional tragic thought, and also examines how the form of specific novels was affected by their differing ideas of tragedy.

    Product details

    February 1980
    Paperback
    9780521297448
    192 pages
    216 × 140 × 11 mm
    0.25kg
    Available

    Table of Contents

    • Preface
    • Introduction: the critical background
    • 1. The tragic philosophy: determinism and free will
    • 2. From tragic drama to the tragic novel
    • 3. Realism and tragedy
    • 4. George Eliot: pathos and tragedy
    • 5. Thomas Hardy: tragedy ancient and modern
    • 6. Henry James: freedom and form - the tragic dilemma
    • Conclusion
    • Notes
    • Select Bibliography
    • Index.
      Author
    • Jeannette King