Overview
Reform Acts offers a new approach to prominent questions raised in recent studies of the novel. By examining social agency from a historical rather than theoretical perspective, Chris R. Vanden Bossche investigates how particular assumptions involving agency came into being. Through readings of both canonical and noncanonical Victorian literature, he demonstrates that the Victorian tension between reform and revolution framed conceptions of agency in ways that persist in our own time. Vanden Bossche argues that Victorian novels sought to imagine new forms of social agency evolving from Chartism, the dominant working-class movement of the time. Novelists envisioned alternative forms of social agency by employing contemporary discourses from Chartism's focus on suffrage as well as the means through which it sought to obtain it, such as moral versus physical force, land reform, and the cooperative movement. Each of the three parts of Reform Acts begins with a chapter that analyzes contemporary conversations and debates about social agency in the press and in political debate. Succeeding chapters examine how novels envision ways of effecting social change, for example, class alliance in Barnaby Rudge; landed estates as well as finely graded hierarchy and politicians in Coningsby and Sybil; and reforming trade unionism in Mary Barton and North and South. By including novels written from a range of political perspectives, Vanden Bossche discovers patterns in Victorian thinking that are easily recognized in today's assumptions about social hierarchy.
Full Product Details
Author: Chris R. Vanden Bossche (Professor of English, University of Notre Dame)
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Imprint: Johns Hopkins University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 2.20cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.476kg
ISBN: 9781421412085
ISBN 10: 142141208
Pages: 264
Publication Date: 29 March 2014
Recommended Age: From 17
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Out of stock 
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.
Table of Contents
"Acknowledgments 1. Social Agency: The Franchise, Class Discourse, and National Narratives Part I: Making Physical Force Moral: The Dilemma of Chartism, 1838–1842 2. Social Agency in the Chartist and Parliamentary Press 3. Egalitarian Chivalry and Popular Agency in Wat Tyler 4. Unconsummated Marriage and the ""Uncommitted"" Gunpowder Plot in Guy Fawkes 5. Class Alliance and Self-Culture in Barnaby Rudge Part II: ""The land! The land! The land!"": Land Ownership as Political Reform, 1842–1848 6. Agricultural Reform, Young England's Allotments, and the Chartist Land Plan 7. The Landed Estate, Finely Graded Hierarchy, and the Member of Parliament in Coningsby and Sybil 8. Agricultural Improvement and the Squirearchy in Hillingdon Hall 9. The Land Plan, Class Dichotomy, and Working-Class Agency inSunshine and Shadow Part III: The Social Turn: From Chartism to Cooperation and Trade Unionism, 1848–1855 10. Christian Socialism and Cooperative Association 11. Clergy and Working-Class Cooperation in Yeast and Alton Locke 12. Reforming Trade Unionism in Mary Barton and North and South Coda: Rethinking Reform in the Era of the Second Reform Act, 1860–1867 Notes Works Cited Index"
Reviews
Chris R. Vanden Bossche explores the subject of reform as the dominant ideal in English progressive politics... his work does offer some illuminating insights into this particular trait of Victorian self-representation. Times Literary Supplement Students of 19th-century history, literature, and political science will find fresh insights here. Choice Thoughtful... persuasive... The key contribution of the book is the way Vanden Bossche highlights curious and subtle rhetorical tricks whereby writers of the Whig and Tory side seek to align the interests of the working class with their own. -- John Plotz Journal of British Studies A welcome and timely boost to scholarship in the relationship between literature and politics in mid-nineteenth-century Britain. -- Simon Rennie Review of English Studies
Chris R. Vanden Bossche explores the subject of reform as the dominant ideal in Enlish progressive politics... his work does offer some illuminating insights into this particular trait of Victorian self-representation.
Chris R. Vanden Bossche explores the subject of reform as the dominant ideal in English progressive politics... his work does offer some illuminating insights into this particular trait of Victorian self-representation. Times Literary Supplement Students of 19th-century history, literature, and political science will find fresh insights here. Choice Thoughtful... persuasive... The key contribution of the book is the way Vanden Bossche highlights curious and subtle rhetorical tricks whereby writers of the Whig and Tory side seek to align the interests of the working class with their own. -- John Plotz Journal of British Studies
Author Information
Chris R. Vanden Bossche is a professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, author of Carlyle and the Search for Authority, editor of Thomas Carlyle: Historical Essays, and coeditor of Thomas Carlyle: Past and Present.
Tab Content 6
Author Website:
Customer Reviews
Recent Reviews
No review item found!
Add your own review!
Countries Available
All regions
|
