The Victorian Novel Dreams of the Real : Conventions and Ideology

"Critical discussions of the Victorian realist novel tend to focus on its vivid representations of everyday life. The Victorian Novel Dreams of the Real proposes that the genre is founded in desire, moving the novels not towards a shared reality but rather toward distinct fantasies: dreams of the real. Rather than simply redefine Victorian realism or propose a new canon for it, The Victorian Novel Dreams of the Real argues that the real is inevitably, for the Victorian realist novel, an object of desire: what the novel seeks to capture and represent. A novel's construction of the real is therefore inseparable from its fantasy of the real--a formulation Audrey Jaffe refers to as "realist fantasy." One way in which this simultaneity manifests itself is that the conventions novels frequently use to represent characters' dreams, daydreams, and fantasies overlap with those each novel uses to create its realist effects. In new readings of Victorian novels (including Eliot's Adam Bede, Dickens's Oliver Twist, Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge and The Return of the Native, Trollope's Orley Farm, and Wilkie Collins's Armadale), The Victorian Novel Dreams of the Real demonstrates that one of the signal effects of this overlapping is Victorian realism's construction of the real as an object of readerly desire. Jaffe shows that realism and fantasy in the Victorian realist novel are not opposed, but rather occupy the same space and are shaped by the same conventions. Revisiting and reconsidering key elements of realist novel theory (including metonymy; the insignificant detail; character interiority; the representation of everyday life and the idea of disillusionment), The Victorian Novel Dreams of the Real also uncovers and anatomizes representational strategies unique to each text."--Publisher's description In his fourth book of essays, acclaimed cultural critic Arthur Krystal surveys the world of letters in its academic, literary, and populist incarnations?just to make sure those divisions still apply. What he finds is that the ground has shifted. With Lionel Trilling at his back, Krystal casts a cold eye on contemporary culture and discerns a lack of discrimination between the truly great and the merely good, and the fairly good and just plain bad. Critical but not angst-ridden, he deplores tunnel vision on both sides of the culture wars. Presumptive cultural boundaries have no place here. Krystal admires Bob Dylan and Elmore Leonard without including them in a purely literary pantheon. He endorses the Great Books without necessarily voting the Republican ticket. In essays about the meaning of the novel, the role of music in poetry, genre fiction vs. literary fiction, the contributions of the superlative critic Erich Auerbach, and the strange alliance of neurology and aesthetics, as well as in lighter pieces about reviewing and list-making, Krystal brings his own brand of discriminating intelligence to a spectrum of received opinions whose flaws and cracks otherwise go unnoticed.0 Cover......Page 1 The Victorian Novel Dreams of the Real......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 Contents......Page 6 Acknowledgments......Page 8 Introduction: Realist Fantasy......Page 12 1. Realist Territory: Invitation and Prohibition in Adam Bede......Page 31 1. Oliver Twist and the Victorian Family Romance......Page 52 2. The Mayor of Casterbridge and the Failure of Convention......Page 68 3. Castles in the Air: Trollope’s Realist Fantasy......Page 79 4. “Outside the Gates of Everything”: Hardy’s Exclusionary Realism......Page 105 5. Armadale: Sensation Fiction Dreams of the Real......Page 127 6. Conclusion: Critical Desire and the Victorian Real......Page 150 Works Cited......Page 184 Index......Page 192 'the Victorian Novel Dreams Of The Real' Argues That Victorian Novelistic Realism Is A Product Of The Victorians' Overarching Desire, Both Cultural And Ideological, For The Real. What The Book Calls 'realist Fantasy' Describes The Way In Which The Conventions Used To Represent Characters' Dreams, Daydreams, And Fantasies Also Shape The More General And Generalized Fantasy That Constitutes Each Particular Novel's Imagining Of The Real. The Victorian Novel Dreams of the Real presents a new interpretation of the Victorian realist novel based on realism's desire for the real. In provocative readings of novels by Eliot, Dickens, Trollope, Hardy, and Collins, Jaffe redefines realist conventions and reinterprets long-held theories about realist representation.