The English Novel In History 1840-1895 - 9780415014991

Taylor & Francis

This invaluable introduction for students examines the Victorian novel in depth, tracing its form and also placing it in its historical context. Key novelists of the period are discussed, including Eliot, Dickens, Thackeray and the Brontes. > \nThe construction of history as a social common denominator is a powerful achievement of the nineteenth-century novel, a form dedicated to experimenting with democratic social practice as it conflicts with economic and feudal visions of social order. Through revisionary readings of familiar nineteenth-century texts The English Novel in History 1840-1895 takes a multidisciplinary approach to literary history. It highlights how narrative shifts from one construction of time to another and reformulates fundamental ideas of identity, nature and society.\n Elizabeth Ermarth discusses the range of novels alongside other cultural material, including painting, science, religious, political and economic theory. She explores the problems of how a socis