The one vs. the many : minor characters and the space of the protagonist in the novel
09 Feb 2009-
About: The article was published on 2009-02-09. It has received 315 citations till now.
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TL;DR: Sichel as discussed by the authors argues that these new "philanthropic romances" are written with a wider aim, in so far as it takes for its end the redemption of humanity instead of personal salvation.
Abstract: In an 1888 article titled “Two Philanthropic Novelists,” Edith Sichel identifies Walter Besant’s all Sorts and Conditions of Men (1882) as a specimen of a new genre of fiction: “We have had the Historical Romance, the Mystic Romance, the Social Romance, the Psychological Romance; it has remained for the present day to give us the Philanthropic Romance . . . [Though Dickens and Gaskell] described the poorer classes with master-pens, Dickens had little or no purpose of their mental improvement. ‘Oliver Twist’ was certainly not written to induce reform among thieves, [and Gaskell proposed] purely local and temporary answers to purely local and temporary questions” (506). These new “philanthropic romances,” she argues, are written with a wider aim. Besant advocates for “a [form of] modern asceticism [which] differs from medieval asceticism, in so far as it takes for its end the redemption of humanity instead of personal salvation” (506). Sichel suggests that Besant shows the ways in which interiority disconnects people from one another, even those living in a city:
6 citations
DOI•
01 Jan 2011
TL;DR: Lieber et al. as mentioned in this paper studied the distinctiveness of the Russian novel in the form of a literary experiment, focusing on matters of formal design, corporeal integrity and vulnerability, and communal harmony and discord.
Abstract: On the Distinctiveness of the Russian Novel: The Brothers Karamazov and the English Tradition Emma K. Lieber This dissertation takes as its starting point Leo Tolstoy’s famous contention that the works of the Russian literary canon represent “deviation[s] from European forms.” It is envisioned as a response to (or an elaboration upon) critical works that address the unique rise, formation, and poetics of the Russian novel, many of which are themselves responses (or Russian corollaries) to Ian Watt’s study of the rise of the novel in England; and it functions similarly under the assumption that the singularity of the Russian novel is a product of various idiosyncrasies in the Russian cultural milieu. The project is structured as a comparative examination of two pairs of eighteenthand nineteenthcentury novels from Russia and England, and as such it approaches the question of the Russian novel’s distinctiveness in the form of a literary experiment. By engaging in close readings of Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders (1722) alongside Mikhail Chulkov’s The Comely Cook (Prigozhaia povarikha, 1770), and Charles Dickens’s Bleak House (1853) alongside Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov (1880), concentrating particularly on matters of formal design, corporeal integrity and vulnerability, and communal harmony and discord—and by understanding the English texts as a “control group” for an examination of the Russian deviation—it attempts to identify some of the distinctive features of the Russian realist novel. The largest portion of the dissertation is dedicated to The Brothers Karamazov, which I take as an emblematic work in a literary canon that is distinguished by intimations that healing and recovery—as well as the coexistence of both personal freedom and communal rapport—are possible in the real world and in realist narrative.
6 citations
TL;DR: This article explored the ways in which Alejandro Morales Wgures the futuristic Asian American subject within his speculative novel, The Rag Doll Plagues (1992), and found that the minor character helped generate comparative race critiques that expand how American literatures can be analyzed.
Abstract: In Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, Toni Morrison forcefully reveals how American literature’s representational terrain can be understood through the history of enslavement and oppression. Her paradigm is not only political; she also advances an innovative interpretive approach to American literature, encouraging us to take a closer look at racialized minor characters. An intellectual investment in the minor character helps generate comparative race critiques that expand how American literatures can be analyzed. Along these lines, this article focuses on a particular inclusion of a minor character, an Asian American female, within a Chicano literary production.1 In order to illuminate the importance of what we might call minority Orientalism, I explore the ways in which Alejandro Morales Wgures the futuristic Asian American subject within his speculative novel, The Rag Doll Plagues (1992).2 Although this article focuses on one book, my critical methodology and theorization can be applied much more broadly. An interpretation of minority Orientalist texts spotlights the Wgure of the Asian or Asian American as a minor character who functions to clarify the comparative and asymmetrical nature of racial exclusions. Some questions to consider: What is particularly unique about Chi cano literary Orientalism? Why do Chicano writers seem collectively invested in employing Asian and Asian American characters and con texts to Xesh out the Wctional world? Such questions can be unpacked by thinking interracially and interethnically: Chicanos and Asian Americans are two populations that have been linked historically through citizenship status, class, labor exploitation, and regional habitation. At various points in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the American
6 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that the Parsee is not so much a baffl ing Mephistopheles as a lone drifter with an untold story, summed up in his life-affi rming cry to Ahab, "Take another pledge, old man."
Abstract: Fedallah's role in Moby-Dick may be considered a "proleptic narrative" sup- pressed not only in Ishmael's story of survival but also in the scholarship on Melville's novel. Fedallah's role is often perceived to be categorically limited as a self-sacrifi cial prophet of doom piloting Ahab's soul, and the Pequod's body, to damnation. Although Fedallah has been dehumanized in the long aftermath of the self-perpetuating narrative voice "Call me Ishmael" and marginalized through decades of scholarly silence, we can discern his textual presence through an anal- ysis that retraces the few steps he takes and listens to the few words he articulates. Opening with an emancipating account of Fedallah's role in the chapter "Leg and Arm," followed by an equally subversive reading of "The Whale Watch," a chap- ter that contains the only fully externalized case of the character engaging in a verbal exchange, I argue that the Parsee is not so much a baffl ing Mephistopheles as a lone drifter with an untold story, summed up in his life-affi rming cry to Ahab, "Take another pledge, old man."
6 citations
TL;DR: In today's Europe, the term Eurosceptic often accompanies accusations of retrograde nationalism, irrational feelings, even fanaticism as discussed by the authors. And yet skepticism is a much-needed critical affect, particularly when it comes to Europe.
Abstract: In today's Europe, the term Eurosceptic often accompanies accusations of retrograde nationalism, irrational feelings, even fanaticism. When applied to Europe, skepticism, one of the critic's formative traits, acquires a bad reputation, as if it can only be an annihilating, rather than constructive, form of doubt. And yet skepticism is a much-needed critical affect, particularly when it comes to Europe. If we need to be skeptical of anything, it is Europe. Today one hears claims about Europe having become postnational, postracial, even post-Europe. How else can the literary and cultural critic welcome such claims other than with a healthy dose of skepticism?
6 citations