Heroes and heroism in British fiction since 1800 : case studies

This book is about the manifestations and explorations of the heroic in narrative literature since around 1800. It traces the most important stages of this representation but also includes strands that have been marginalised or silenced in a dominant masculine and higher-class framework - the studies include explorations of female versions of the heroic, and they consider working-class and ethnic perspectives. The chapters in this volume each focus on a prominent conjuncture of texts, histories and approaches to the heroic. Taken together, they present an overview of the ‘literary heroic’ in fiction since the late eighteenth century. Front Matter....Pages i-xiii Introduction: Heroes and Heroism in British Fiction. Concepts and Conjunctures....Pages 1-29 Negotiating Modernity, Modernising Heroes: Heroes and Heroines in Gothic and Sensation Fiction of the Long Nineteenth Century....Pages 31-46 Potentially the Noble Creature? Picturing Heroism in Henry Rider Haggard’s She ....Pages 47-66 The Fate of Heroism After Industrialisation: The Working-Class Male in the British Nineteenth-Century Realist Novel and Beyond....Pages 67-84 Death of the Hero? Heroism in British Fiction of the First World War....Pages 85-100 “A Courage Steadfast, Luminous”: Christopher Caudwell and the Communist Hero....Pages 101-116 Unspeakable Heroism: The Second World War and the End of the Hero....Pages 117-134 Constructing and Deconstructing the Fantasy Hero: Joe Abercrombie’s “First Law” Trilogy....Pages 135-150 An Unlikely Hero for the War-on-Terror Decade: Patrick Neate’s City of Tiny Lights ....Pages 151-167 The Heroic in British Young Adult Fiction: Traditions and Renegotiations....Pages 169-182 Victims and Heroes Get All Mixed Up: Gender and Agency in the Thriller....Pages 183-198 Back Matter....Pages 199-206 Barbara Korte, Stefanie Lethbridge, Editors. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.