Victorian Renovations of the Novel: Narrative Annexes and the Boundaries of Representation (Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture, Series Number 15)

This study of narrative technique in Victorian novels introduces the concept of "narrative annexes" whereby unexpected characters, impermissible subjects and plot-changing events enter fictional worlds that otherwise exclude them, challenging Victorian cultural and literary norms. Original readings of novels by Charlotte Brontë, Dickens, Disraeli, Hardy, Kingsley, Trollope and Wells show these writers negotiating the boundaries of representation to reveal subjects (notably sexuality and social class) that contemporary critics sought to exclude from the realm of the novel. This study of narrative technique in Victorian novels introduces the concept of 'narrative annexes' whereby unexpected characters, impermissible subjects and plot-changing events are introduced within fictional worlds which otherwise exclude them. They are marked by the crossing of borders into previously unrepresented places and new genres or modes, challenging Victorian cultural and literary norms. Suzanne Keen's original readings of novels by Charlotte Brontë, Dickens, Disraeli, Hardy, Kingsley, Trollope, and Wells show these writers negotiating the boundaries of representation to reveal in narrative annexes the subjects (notably sexuality and social class) which contemporary critics sought to exclude from the realm of the novel. Fears of disease, of working men, of Popery, of dark-skinned 'others', of the poor who toil and starve in close proximity to the rectories, homes, clubs and walled gardens of Victorian polite society draw readers down narrow alleys, through thorny hedges, across desolate heaths, into narrative annexes Cover......Page 1 Title......Page 6 Copyright......Page 7 Contents......Page 10 Acknowledgments......Page 12 1. Narrative annexes: altered spaces, altered modes......Page 14 2. Victorian critics, narrative annexes, and prescriptions for the novel......Page 55 3. Norms and narrow spaces: the gendering of limits on representation......Page 78 4. Narrative annexes, social mobility, and class anxiety......Page 124 5. Older, deeper, further: narrative annexes and the extent of the Condition of England......Page 158 6. Victorian annexes and modern form......Page 191 Notes......Page 203 Bibliography......Page 230 Index......Page 252 CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE AND CULTURE......Page 256 This study of narrative technique in Victorian novels introduces the concept of 'narrative annexes' whereby unexpected characters, impermissible subjects and plot-changing events enter fictional worlds which otherwise exclude them, challenging Victorian cultural and literary norms. Original readings of novels by Charlotte Bronte, Dickens, Disraeli, Hardy, Kingsley, Trollope and Wells show these writers negotiating the boundaries of representation to reveal subjects (notably sexuality and social class) which contemporary critics sought to exclude from the realm of the novel. This study of the Victorian novel identifies a technique employed across its various kinds - in social fictions, fictional autobiographies, Bildungsromanen, Condition of England novels, romances, and realistic novels - to renovate the nineteenth-century house of fiction. Suzanne Keen. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 217-238) And Index.