In Praise of the Minor Character : The Importance of Peripheral Figures in Victorian Literature.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pregent, Grace.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

English fiction.

Characters and characteristics in literature.

Genre:

Literary criticism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (203 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Jefferson : McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers, 2023.

Summary:

"Minor characters are everywhere in novels. They linger with readers and invite us to infer into the untold aspects of their lives. They fill a text's landscape, bringing depth to its ecosystem, and encourage us to shift our thoughts from textual centers to margins and even to consider minorness in our own experiences. In their quietness, minor characters challenge us to hold oppositional perspectives, rethink interdependencies, and reimagine textual and lived relationships. In many ways, we identify with minor characters, and yet we lack a nuanced way of reading for them. This work is about minor characters and the qualities of minorness in Victorian novels. It offers casual readers and scholars alike a method of reading and rereading for minor characters that extends across genres. Chapters trace and analyze minor characters across a range of novels including The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Vanity Fair, The Way We Live Now and more."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Cover

Acknowledgments

Preface

I. Defining and Reading for Minor Characters

1. Minorness and Minor Characters

2. Peripheral Voices in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

II. From Narrators and Narratees to Implied Authors and Implied Readers

3. Narrators and Narratees

4. Empathy and the Process of Making and Receiving Minor Characters

III. Real Authors and Real Readers

5. Social Authorship, J.M. Langford, and Very Minor Characters in The Way We Live Now

6. Social Readership and the Global Expansiveness of Thomas Hardy's Minor Characters

7. "An Opinion of Ireland"

Conclusion

Chapter Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Other Format:

Print version: Pregent, Grace In Praise of the Minor Character

ISBN:

1-4766-5051-9