This project examines the impact of popular literacy on the representation of reading and writing in Victorian prose. Literacy increased dramatically in Victorian Britain, becoming nearly universal by the turn of the century, and major developments in education and publishing accompanied this growth. While critics have investigated extensively the reading habits of women (Flint 1993, Phegley 2004) and the working class (Vincent 1993, Brantlinger 1998, Rose 2001), my thesis argues that the rise of popular literacy caused a more wide-ranging reconceptualization of what was involved in the acts of reading and writing for literate Britons from across the social spectrum. This redefinition of literacy occurred inter-generically through the development of diverse conceptual models of reading and writing in Victorian prose. By examining the literacy models circulated in educational literature, periodicals and popular reading guides, and fiction, my thesis reveals literacy's association with control of the self and the social body and outlines the perceived impact of reading and writing on individual psychology. I trace the transformation of reading and writing instruction in elementary schools from a process intended to engender obedience and moral conformity to one intended to create a habit of reading. The models of reading as eating, reading as an addiction, and desultory reading circulated in periodicals and reading guides demonstrate the perceived dangers of this habit, once created. Critics and educators constructed counter-models of intensive, systematic reading to combat these dangers. Examining George Eliot's Romola and Daniel Deronda and George Gissing's New Grub Street, "Spellbound," and "Christopherson," I show how these authors reinterpreted popular models of literacy in their fiction, exploring the effects of reading and writing on psychology and gender identity. Through this analysis of literacy's representation in Victorian prose, my thesis reveals the complicated position of reading and writing in the nineteenth century.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/29977 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Stephenson, Ryan |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 376 p. |
Page generated in 0.0025 seconds