Description
Book SynopsisWhy Victorian Literature Still Matters is a passionate defense of the enduring impact of Victorian realism today. With a nod to the popularity of phrenology within that era, noted literary scholar Philip Davis points to a corner of the human mind where all Victorian literature resides.
Trade Review"Philip Davis's Blackwell manifesto offers a spirited, polemical defence of Victorian literature in general, and Victorian realism in particular, against its modernist and postmodernist detractors." (Oxford Journals, 1 June 2011)
"In Why Victorian Literature Still Matters, Davis writes as a reader. Readers, as he defines them, are different from scholars and critics. Who distance themselves from the worlds before them by turning to history or theory instead. Readers, by contrast, do not distance themselves at all, but rather seek ever more closeness." (Victorian Studies, Winter 2010)"Philip Davis's [book] ... Was fascinating about Victorian writing, and one of the best books written about how novels can work." (The Guardian, November 2008)
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Victorian Bump and Where to Find It 1
1 Victorian Hard Wiring 9
2 Isaiah and Ezekiel – But What About Charley? 35
3 Not So Straightforward: Realist Prose and What It Hides Within Itself 54
4 A Literature In Time 81
5 Individual Agents 112
6 A Few of My Favorite Things: A Glove, a Sandal, and Plaited Hair 138
Notes 161
Index 168
