Overview

This pathbreaking work analyses melodrama as a behavioural paradigm of the nineteenth century, manifest in the theatre, in literature, and in society. With its familial narratives, depictions of bodily torture, scenes of criminal conduct, expressions of highly charged emotion, and simple themes of good and evil, the melodramatic mode reaffirmed the familial, hierarchical, and public grounds for ethical behaviour and identity that characterized eighteenth-century models of social exchange and organization. In these enactments, Radicals and Tories, paupers and newsmen, ladies and prostitutes, and men of letters responded to the effects of a consolidating market culture, especially the emergence of bureaucratic procedures of rationalization, classification, and professionalization.

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9780804724036

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Reviews

Centering her discussion around the term 'melodramatic modes, ' Hadley examines a response to the social, economic, and epistemological changes that characterized the Consolidation of market society in the nineteenth century. . . . In spite of the fact that she covers the whole of the nineteenth century and cites multiple examples, Hadley's approach is unified, fresh, and innovative. She suggests new and significant ways of looking at Victorian culture and challenging some traditional judgments. -- Choice

This is a very significant and original contribution to our understanding of melodrama per se and, more generally, of Victorian social relations and cultural representations. Moreover, it is a masterful demonstration of the kind of historical research that many in literary studies now talk of doing, but few do with such vigor and thoroughness. --Christina Crosby, Wesleyan University Centering her discussion around the term 'melodramatic modes,' Hadley examines a response to the social, economic, and epistemological changes that characterized the Consolidation of market society in the nineteenth century... In spite of the fact that she covers the whole of the nineteenth century and cites multiple examples, Hadley's approach is unified, fresh, and innovative. She suggests new and significant ways of looking at Victorian culture and challenging some traditional judgments. --Choice

Author Information

Elaine Hadley is Assistant Professor of English and of the Humanities at the University of Chicago.

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