Aging, duration, and the English novel : growing old from Dickens to Woolf / Jacob Jewusiak.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jewusiak, Jacob, author.

Series:

Cambridge studies in nineteenth-century literature and culture ; 120.

Cambridge studies in nineteenth-century literature and culture ; 120

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

English fiction.

Aging in literature.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

xi, 202 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press, 2020.

Summary:

The rapid onset of dementia after an illness, the development of gray hair after a traumatic loss, the sudden appearance of a wrinkle in the brow of a spurned lover. The realist novel uses these conventions to accelerate the process of aging into a descriptive moment, writing the passage of years on the body all at once. Aging, Duration, and the English Novel argues that the formal disappearance of aging from the novel parallels the ideological pressure to identify as being young by repressing the process of growing old. The construction of aging as a shameful event that should be hidden - to improve one's chances on the job market or secure a successful marriage - corresponds to the rise of the long novel, which draws upon the temporality of the body to map progress and decline onto the plots of nineteenth-century British modernity.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781108499170

1108499171

OCLC:

1127093934