Children, Parents, and the Rise of the NovelUniversity of Delaware Press, 1995 - 252 sivua "In Children, Parents, and the Rise of the Novel, T. G. A. Nelson challenges the views of literary critics who contend that the child held little importance as a theme of imaginative literature in the first half of the eighteenth century. Nelson's work follows thirty years of intense discussion of children and childhood by social historians, most of whom see the first half of the eighteenth century as a time of momentous change." "In Restoration comedy, for example, the child is a signifier of unwanted burdens that may fall on the parents: wit and cunning are expended in transferring responsibility for children to convenient dupes. However, in the early novel, in periodical literature, and in other discourses of concern, the comic, dismissive response toward children is increasingly marginalized and subjected to negative criticism, especially when attributed to wealthy or socially distinguished characters. In traditional comedy, rejection of children characterized the carefree rake, who, though satirized at times, was generally projected as an embodiment of the life-force. In the new writing, rejection of children is firmly associated with frigidity, especially among the rich, not with life-giving energy." "Recent writers on the eighteenth-century novel have overstressed elements of covert hostility toward wives and children. This seems partly due to their own ideological rejection of the family and partly to their misunderstanding of the nature of fictional and dramatic narrative. Such narrative is unsuited to figurations of domestic peace and harmony; often it is in situations of domestic discord that the child figure becomes most active and significant in the world of the novel, but this does not mean that the novelists continued to present the child or the family negatively, as earlier dramatists had done. Overall, the child in eighteenth-century fiction is not merely more prominent than has been generally recognized, but is identifiable as a signifier of hope, vigor, spontaneity, and new life."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved |
Kirjan sisältä
Tulokset 1 - 3 kokonaismäärästä 31
Sivu 28
... novelists and their characters to explore the mysterious and elusive subjectivity of the child . One is a residual em- barrassment on the part of the authors and of their imagined readers about devoting too much time and attention to ...
... novelists and their characters to explore the mysterious and elusive subjectivity of the child . One is a residual em- barrassment on the part of the authors and of their imagined readers about devoting too much time and attention to ...
Sivu 29
... novelists often note that the responsibility of children increases the vulnerability of the par- ents in a harsh and unpredictable world . It would be unaccept- ably glib to suggest that in this the novelists are subverting their own ...
... novelists often note that the responsibility of children increases the vulnerability of the par- ents in a harsh and unpredictable world . It would be unaccept- ably glib to suggest that in this the novelists are subverting their own ...
Sivu 233
... novelists show awareness of this , as earlier chapters of this book have shown , and their sensitivity may have something to do with their failure to achieve greater inwardness in their portrayal of the potentially encroaching child ...
... novelists show awareness of this , as earlier chapters of this book have shown , and their sensitivity may have something to do with their failure to achieve greater inwardness in their portrayal of the potentially encroaching child ...
Sisältö
Acknowledgments | 9 |
The Child in Restoration Comedy | 36 |
Augustan Comedy and the Validation of Issue | 51 |
Tekijänoikeudet | |
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Yleiset termit ja lausekkeet
adults affection allowed attempt attitudes baby bastard become begins birth bring century characters child childhood comedy comes comic concern course daughter death desire earlier early Edited eighteenth eighteenth-century English especially example existence expressions father feelings fiction Fielding figure follow fondness girl give hand History human husband idea imaginative infant innocence keep kind later leave less letter lives Locke Locke's London look marriage married means mind Moll mother narrative narrator natural never notes novel novelists nurse offer offspring once Pamela parents parish passage perhaps period play pleasure poor practice present Press rake reader reason reference relations responsibility Restoration Roxana scene seems seen sexual shows social stage story suggest taken tells thought tion turn University wife woman women writers young
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