How novels think : the limits of British individualism from 1719-1900 / Nancy Armstrong.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Armstrong, Nancy, 1938-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

English fiction.

Individualism in literature.

Literature and society--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Literature and society.

Literature and society--Great Britain--History--18th century.

English fiction--18th century--History and criticism.

Didactic fiction, English--History and criticism.

Didactic fiction, English.

Ethics in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (204 p.)

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, 2005.

Language Note:

English

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

Nancy Armstrong argues that the history of the novel and the history of the modern individual are, quite literally, one and the same. She suggests that certain works of fiction created a subject, one displaying wit, will, or energy capable of shifting the social order to grant the exceptional person a place commensurate with his or her individual worth. Once the novel had created this figure, readers understood themselves in terms of a narrative that produced a self-governing subject.In the decades following the revolutions in British North America and France, the major novelists

Contents:

Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction: How Novels Think; 1. How the Misfit Became a Moral Protagonist; 2. When Novels Made Nations; 3. Why a Good Man Is Hard to Find in Victorian Fiction; 4. The Polygenetic Imagination; 5. The Necessary Gothic; Notes; Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 155-186) and index.

ISBN:

9780231503877

0231503873

OCLC:

827481623