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1	"A Blaze of Light and Finery": The Victorian Theater and the Victorian Theatrical Novel Davis, Dorinda Mari 01 January 2011 (has links) The concept of the Victorian antitheatrical prejudice is both well-established and well-respected. This paper, however, examining the Victorian theatrical novel and the Victorian theater in terms of that prejudice, finds the ready assumption of the prejudice to be problematic at best. A close look at three novels that together span the early to mid-nineteenth century shows that, far from being ubiquitous and unilateral, antitheatricality was in many cases an anomaly; indeed, many of those novelistic elements that have long been assumed to be antitheatrical address different issues altogether. Employing close readings of the novels--Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, Charles Dickens's Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, and Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury's The Half-Sisters--along with an examination of historical documents, and utilizing as well current scholarship in Victorian theater and theatrical novels, I demonstrate that the Victorians were instead keen appreciators of theater, and that the Victorian "antitheatrical novel" was in many cases far more interested in the authenticity of human interplay than in the inauthenticity of staged role-play. Crummles Geraldine Jewsbury Mansfield Park Nicholas Nickleby the antitheatrical prejudice The Half-Sisters American Studies Arts and Humanities
2	A Gentlemen's Benevolence: Symptoms of Class, Gender, and Social Change in Emma, Nicholas Nickleby, and The Mill on the Floss Hammer, Aubrey Lea 10 July 2007 (has links) (PDF) Austen, Dickens, and Eliot each responded to discussions of their time concerning class, gender, and social change. One of the ways they addressed these issues, and sought to find solutions to the problems facing their culture, was through benevolence. Knightley, in Emma, uses benevolence as a means of mediating self-interest and sympathy. By acting out of sympathy, through benevolence, he achieves the self-interested benefits of reinforcing the class system and achieving his romantic conquests. Likewise, Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby learns how to use benevolence as a means of social mobility from his mentors, the Cheerybles. Throughout Nicholas Nickleby the hero learns how to engage in benevolence out of sympathy, and by doing so he establishes himself as a gentleman and reaps social, economic, and romantic advantages. Eliot's Bob Jakin in The Mill on the Floss engages in benevolence out of true sympathy unhindered by self-interest. His freedom from social constraint and self-interest allows him to truly help Maggie Tulliver when no one else can. These authors' depictions of benevolence all illuminate ways that nineteenth-century literary authors sought to navigate the “Adam Smith Problem" of sympathy vs. self-interest. Benevolence, in these novels, is not disinterested (regardless of their motivation) but is influenced by the character's and author's perception of class, gender, and social change in the nineteenth century. sympathy benevolence class gender social change charity philanthropy Austen Dickens Eliot Emma Nicholas Nickleby mill on the floss child victim canine dog boundary enclosure chivalry gentleman masculinity English Language and Literature

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"A Blaze of Light and Finery": The Victorian Theater and the Victorian Theatrical Novel

A Gentlemen's Benevolence: Symptoms of Class, Gender, and Social Change in Emma, Nicholas Nickleby, and The Mill on the Floss