Secrecy and Disclosure in Victorian Fiction

Secrecy and Disclosure in Victorian Fiction
Author :
Publisher :
Total Pages : 252
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0367346427
ISBN-13 : 9780367346423
Rating : 4/5 (423 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Secrecy and Disclosure in Victorian Fiction by : Leila Silvana May

Download or read book Secrecy and Disclosure in Victorian Fiction written by Leila Silvana May and published by . This book was released on 2019-07-17 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why were the Victorians more fascinated with secrecy than people of other periods? What is the function of secrets in Victorian fiction and in the society depicted, how does it differ from that of other periods, and how did readers of Victorian fiction respond to the secrecy they encountered? These are some of the questions Leila May poses in her study of the dynamics of secrecy and disclosure in fiction from Queen Victoria's coronation to the century's end. May argues that the works of writers such as Charlotte Brontë, William Makepeace Thackeray, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and Arthur Conan Doyle reflect a distinctly Victorian obsession with the veiling and unveiling of information. She argues that there are two opposing vectors in Victorian culture concerning secrecy and subjectivity, one presupposing a form of radical Cartesian selfhood always remaining a secret to other selves and another showing that nothing can be hidden from the trained eye. (May calls the relation between these clashing tendencies the "dialectics" of secrecy and disclosure.) May's theories of secrecy and disclosure are informed by the work of twentieth-century social scientists. She emphasizes Georg Simmel's thesis that sociality and subjectivity are impossible without secrecy and Erving Goffman's claim that sociality can be understood in terms of performativity, "the presentation of the self in everyday life," and his revelation that performance always involves disguise, hence secrecy. May's study offers convincing evidence that secrecy and duplicity, in contrast to the Victorian period's emphasis on honesty and earnestness, emerged in response to the social pressures of class, gender, monarchy, and empire, and were key factors in producing both the subjectivity and the sociality that we now recognize as Victorian.


Secrecy and Disclosure in Victorian Fiction Related Books

Secrecy and Disclosure in Victorian Fiction
Language: en
Pages: 252
Authors: Leila Silvana May
Categories:
Type: BOOK - Published: 2019-07-17 - Publisher:

GET EBOOK

Why were the Victorians more fascinated with secrecy than people of other periods? What is the function of secrets in Victorian fiction and in the society depic
Victorian Sensation
Language: en
Pages: 645
Authors: James A. Secord
Categories: Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2003-09-20 - Publisher: University of Chicago Press

GET EBOOK

Fiction or philosophy, profound knowledge or shocking heresy? When Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation was published anonymously in 1844, it sparked one
Secret Ritual and Manhood in Victorian America
Language: en
Pages: 242
Authors: Mark Christopher Carnes
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 1989-01-01 - Publisher: Yale University Press

GET EBOOK

In this study of American 19th-century secret orders, the author argues that religious practices and gender roles became increasingly feminized in Victorian Ame
Secrecy and Disclosure in Victorian Fiction
Language: en
Pages: 297
Authors: Leila Silvana May
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 2016-07-15 - Publisher: Routledge

GET EBOOK

Why were the Victorians more fascinated with secrecy than people of other periods? What is the function of secrets in Victorian fiction and in the society depic
Victorian Secrets
Language: en
Pages: 342
Authors: Sarah A. Chrisman
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 2015-04-07 - Publisher: Simon and Schuster

GET EBOOK

On Sarah A. Chrisman’s twenty-ninth birthday, her husband, Gabriel, presented her with a corset. The material and the design were breathtakingly beautiful, bu