Victorian parables / Susan E. Colón.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Colón, Susan E.

Series:

New directions in religion and literature

Continuum new directions in religion and literature

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English fiction--19th century--History and criticism.

English fiction.

Parables in literature.

Christianity and literature--England--History--19th century.

Christianity and literature.

England.

History.

Christianity in literature.

Physical Description:

xiii, 158 pages ; 22 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Continuum International Pub. Group, 2012.

Summary:

"The familiar stories of the good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, and Lazarus and the Rich Man were part of the cultural currency in the nineteenth century, and Victorian authors drew upon the figures and plots of biblical parables for a variety of authoritative, interpretive, and subversive effects. However, scholars of parables in literature have often overlooked the 19th-century novel, assuming that realism--the fiction of the probable and the commonplace--bears no relation to the subversive, iconoclastic genre of parable. But the Victorian literary engagement with the parable genre was not merely a matter of the useful or telling allusion. Susan E. Colṇ shows that authors such as Charles Dickens, Margaret Oliphant, and Charlotte Yonge appreciated the power of parables to deliver an ethical charge that was as unexpected as it was disruptive to conventional moral complacency. Against the common assumption that the genres of realism and parable are polar opposites, this study explores how Victorian novels, despite their length, verisimilitude, and multi-plot complexity, can become parables in ways that imitate, interpret, and challenge their biblical sources"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

1 Parable as Literature, Literature as Parable 1

2 The Extraordinary in the Ordinary: Parable and Realism 23

3 "The Parable of Actual Life": Charlotte Yonge's The Heir of Redclyffe 41

4 Prodigal Sons in the Fiction of Margaret Oliphant 63

5 "The Agent of a Superior": Stewardship Parables in Our Mutual Friend 93.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781441146502

1441146504

9780826443489

0826443486

9781441121370

1441121374

9781441148261

1441148264

OCLC:

657603355

Online:

Cover image