Narrativa inglesa del siglo XIX, Apuntes de Literatura del Siglo XIX

¡Descarga Narrativa inglesa del siglo XIX y más Apuntes en PDF de Literatura del Siglo XIX solo en Docsity! Nineteenth-Century narratives Victorian readers Readers and reading spaces Reading was not as easy as today because they were many impediments: there were no libraries as we know nowadays; not everyone could enter libraries; not everyone knew how to read. Understanding the development of the novel during the century is understanding the ways readers accessed and read their books. Circulating libraries (the 1840s-1850s) < A private commercial establishment for the lending of books, the borrower paying either a fixed sum for each book lent or a periodical subscription. e e These are of two kinds the establishments on a large scale that issue books to subscribers all over the country, and the smaller establishment, usually in the hands of a bookseller, which circulate among local subscribers books either kept in stock or borrowed from one of the larger libraries". Mudie's Select Library They had a powerful influence on the publishing industry, which affected the price of the publication and even the structure, plot and style of the novel. Three-decker novels (the mid-1830s-1890s8) eS + A widespread form of publishing fiction e e Fashionable, high-status and respectable form for 1st edition. e e They were pricey (around 31 to 36 shillings) - Hardcover volumes around 100 pages each. e e Encouraged and sustained by the interest of publishers and circulating libraries e e Aimed at wealthy buyers or middle-class borrowers Serialization <$ Within a journal or magazine <$ Hard Times (1854) Novels were made available in monthly parts, with advertisements at either end. This made them very portable and easily shared. Due to their weekly or monthly publication, the writers frequently ended each episode on a cliff-hanger. Instalments < Usually related with the working classes < Example: weekly parts at a penny Cheaper reprints One volume hardback eS + usually, after the demand in three-deckers or instalments started to diminish. e e Cheaper single volume reprints aimed at middle classes e e Usually within a series with older works regarded as classics eS + 50r6shillings Yellowback % George Routledge in 1848; ee 'Railway library" series: railway novels or yellowbacks; <$ 1or2shillings Paperbacks < The 1850s and explosion in the 18605 % six pennies. < They would start at Penny libraries The influence of fiction Fiction was widely believed to have the capacity to influence its readers. Cultural commentators were particularly anxious about the effects of reading fiction on women. The working classes, too, were thought to be easily corrupted by “trashy fiction”. Many of these anxieties hinged on whether or not readers could distinguish between the escapism afforded by fiction, and the realities of their own lives. Genres and forms of the novel e Bildungsroman e Children's Literature <$ Ways in which women writers have made recourse to the techniques and convention of the Gothic mode in order to explore and articulate, often to highly politicised ends, the condition and experiences of women within patriarchy. e e We are goingto find more active heroines. They are goingto be innovative in the style of gothic -> Anne Radcliffe is going to introduce the explained supernatural. She is goingto be differentiating between horror and terror. Terror versus horror: < Terror could be morally uplifting, suggesting horrific things instead of showing them. Horror, by contrast, freezes and nearly annihilates the senses of its readers because it shows atrocious things too explicitly. The world-painting technique: < The fusing of the narrative, the descriptive, and the dramatic to illustrate the metaphorical journey toward the discovery of self. Jane Austen (1775-1817) Her works reflected her own time, in the realms of the possible, the familiar English landscape and family life, relationships and morality. She combined social realism, satire, romance and comedy < Northanger Abbey (1818) is a satire on the gothic she much devoured when she was a young girl. Sensation Novel Various phenomena in the mid-19th century led to the popularity of the Sensation novels: e The abolition of the stamp duty on printing paper in 1855 e The concomitant increase in the circulation of newspapers e Anincrease in numbers of readers in mid-Victorian Britain e The dramatic increase in the number of circulating libraries e New weekly and monthly (often illustrated) literary magazines e High-interest serialised fiction to maintain a stable readership e Notorious trials such as the poisoner Palmer e Tabloid journalism e Reforms in divorce procedures e Public education Sensation novels originated from the Newgate fiction and the Gothic. They differentiated in the setting and the heroine. e e Setting: middle-class Victorian home (from domestic fiction). Heroine: Not only active but also unexpected, they are not going to be the angel in the e e house, more like a femme fatale. We can find bigamy,; they get married for a second time, because of divorce character and feminine ideal. Directly attached to the moral of middle classes. Sense of realism. Moral ambiguity. Secrecy. The three foundational texts of 'sensation' are: e The Woman in White e East Lynne e Lady Audley's Secret Characteristics of the sensation novel e Either death or redemption of heroines as “the angel in the house” prototype. e Citations of daily newspapers as a source of plots. e Character types; angel, governess, lawyers, bankers, country squire. e Plot; extravagant, complicated, and multiple climaxes and sensation scenes. e Narrative authority eroded; (no longer trustworthy and perhaps omniscient narrator but complicit in crime or criminal himself) e Appropriation of the melodramatic method through excess e Popular best-sellers Victorian Gothic Romance: Charlotte Bronté”s Jane Eyre Topics in Jane Eyre: e e The role of women in the 19th century e e Governesses in Victorian England e e Bertha Mason and the imperial gothic other e e Social realism and fairytale e e Children in fiction The “Condition-of-England” novel “Condition-of-England Question” refers to a body of works including factory novels, industrial novels, social realism, and social problems novels. The condition-of-England novels share the following characteristics: <* They called for legal and social reforms; < They raised their reader's awareness of the social problems of their own times. Their popularity must be understood in the context of the factory question of the early 19th century: <$ The hungry forties < Chartism. % Corn Laws Charles Dicken's Hard Times is one of the most well-known 'Condition-of-England' novels. Charles Dickens (1812-1879) He first published Hard Times for These Times serialized in Household Worlds between 1 April and 12 August 1856. It was published as a single novel in August 1854. It was quite well received, however, some critics believed it was a bid too much of propaganda. The book follows a tripartite structure based on the biblical "For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also real" (Galatians 6:7): e BookI: Sowing e BookII: Reaping e BookIII: Garnering The story is set in Coketown, a fictional space inspired by industrial England which, for many authors, represents a dystopian world threatened by industrialization. Main topics e Utilitarianism - in the education of the children, education based on facts e Factvs Fancy e Divorce Law e Class struggles and Industrialization