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The burdens of perfection : on ethics and reading in nineteenth-century British literature / Andrew H. Miller.
LIBRA PR468.P36 M55 2008
Available from offsite location
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Miller, Andrew H., 1964-
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- English literature--19th century--History and criticism.
- English literature.
- Didactic literature, English--History and criticism.
- Didactic literature, English.
- Perfection in literature.
- Ethics in literature.
- Literature and morals.
- Books and reading--Moral and ethical aspects--Great Britain--History--19th century.
- Books and reading.
- Books and reading--Moral and ethical aspects.
- History.
- Great Britain.
- Physical Description:
- xiv, 260 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
- Place of Publication:
- Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2008.
- Contents:
- Resisting, Conspiring, Completing: An Introduction 1
- Improvement and Moral Perfectionism
- Moral Perfectionism in the Winter of 1866-67
- Historical Sources
- Implicative and Conclusive Criticism
- Part I The Narrative of Improvement
- 1 Skepticism and Perfectionism I: Mechanization and Desire 35
- Standing Before Camelot
- Skepticism as Ungoverned Desire: Browning's Duke
- Skepticism as Mechanization: Carlyle and Mill
- Mr. Dombey Rides Death
- 2 Skepticism and Perfectionism II: Weakness of Will 54
- Victorian Akrasia
- Perspective and Commitment
- Hard Times and Akrasia
- Daniel Deronda and Second-Person Relations
- Orchestrating Perspectives
- Mark Tapley's Nausea
- Interlude: Critical Free Indirect Discourse 84
- 3 Reading Thoughts: Casuistry and Transfiguration 92
- Casuistry and the Novel
- The Theater of Casuistry: Dramatic Monologues
- Exemplary Criticism
- Part II The Moral Psychology of Improvement
- 4 Perfectly Helpless 123
- The Reticulation of Constraint
- Sigmund Freud and Richard Simpson
- 5 Responsiveness, Knowingness, and John Henry Newman 142
- "An Evil Crust Is on Them"
- The Violence of Our Denials
- Watching and Imitation
- Close Reading
- 6 The Knowledge of Shame 162
- Skepticism and Shame
- Three Scenes of Shame
- Edith Dombey's Shame
- Shame and Being Known
- Shame and Great Expectations
- Shame and Narration
- 7 On Lives Unled 191
- Nailed to Ourselves
- Environments for the Optative
- The Jamesian Optative.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 235-250) and index.
- ISBN:
- 9780801446610
- 0801446619
- OCLC:
- 180190780
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