Title Victorian structures : architecture, society, and narrative / Jody Griffith

Published Albany : State University of New York Press, [2020]

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Description 1 online resource (viii, 182 pages) Series SUNY series, studies in the long nineteenth century SUNY series, studies in the long nineteenth century. Contents Introduction: "All men are builders": Victorian Structures -- 1. Within the Walls: Freedom and Obedience in Little Dorrit -- 2. Constructing Novel Time in Ordinary Time: The Architectural Structure of Eliot's Realism -- 3. "As We Lay Stone on Stone": Mediating the Past in The Mayor of Casterbridge -- 4. "Modern Thought ... in Such Decrepit and Superseded Chambers": Disintegrating Structures in Jude the Obscure -- Conclusion: "The Action of the Imagination": Building Perceptions of Truth Summary "Although Victorian novels often feature lengthy descriptions of the buildings where characters live, work, and pray, we may not always notice the stories these buildings tell. But when we do pay attention, we find these buildings offer more than evocative background settings. Victorian Structures uses the architectural writings of Victorian critic John Ruskin as a framework for examining the interaction of physical, social, and narrative structures in Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens, Adam Bede by George Eliot, and The Mayor of Casterbridge and Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. By closely reading their descriptions of architectural structure, this book reconsiders structure itself--both the social structures the novels reflect, and the narrative structures they employ. Weaving together analysis of these three kinds of structure offers an interpretation of Victorian realism that is far more socially and formally unstable than critics have tended to assume. It illustrates how these novels radically critique the limitations, dysfunctions, and deceptions of structure, while also imagining alternative possibilities. This unique interdisciplinary approach emphasizes structure-in-time: while current conversations about structure focus on its static and fixed properties, this book understands it as various forces in tension, producing meanings that are always in flux. Victorian Structures focuses not only on the way structures shape our perceptions and experiences, but also, more importantly, on the processes through which those structures come to be constructed in the first place and change over time"-- Provided by publisher Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Print version record Subject English fiction -- 19th century -- History and criticism Architecture and literature Architecture in literature. Narration (Rhetoric) -- History -- 19th century Literature and society -- England -- History -- 19th century Architecture and literature Architecture in literature English fiction Literature and society Narration (Rhetoric) England Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc. History Form Electronic book ISBN 9781438478333 143847833X

Other Titles Architecture, society, and narrative

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