The Crisis of Action in Nineteenth-century English Literature"We think of the nineteenth century as an active age - the age of colonial expansion, revolutions, and railroads, of great exploration and the Great Exhibition. But in reading the works of Romantic and Victorian writers one notices a conflict, what Stefanie Markovits terms "a crisis of action." In her book, The Crisis of Action in Nineteenth-Century English Literature, Markovits maps out this conflict by focusing on four writers: William Wordsworth, Arthur Hugh Clough, George Eliot, and Henry James. Each chapter offers a "case-study" that demonstrates how specific historical contingencies - including reaction to the French Revolution, laissez-faire economic practices, changes in religious and scientific beliefs, and shifts in women's roles - made people in the period hypersensitive to the status of action and its literary co-relative, plot."--BOOK JACKET. |
Common terms and phrases
A. H. Clough action activity adventure Amours de Voyage Arendt argued Aristotle Arthur Hugh Clough banner believe Blackmur Borderers Carlyle Caserio chapter character Claude Coleridge connection Conrad consciousness crisis Critical Heritage Daniel Deronda deeds describes Doe of Rylstone drama E. S. Dallas Edel edition Emily Emily's emphasis epic Essays Ethics feeling Felix Holt fiction Francis genre George Eliot Gwendolen habit Hamlet Henry James hero heroine Hoffendahl human Hyacinth inaction internal intro Isabel James's kind Lady letter London Lyrical Ballads Marcher marriage Matthew Arnold Middlemarch mind modern moral Mortimer narrative Norton noted novel novelist Oxford University Press passive Paul plot poem poet poetry political Portrait Preface to Lyrical Prelude Princess Casamassima Prose R. H. Hutton represents revolution revolutionary role Romantic Romola Rylstone seems sense story suffering suggests tale things thought tion Unsigned review Victorian vols White Doe William Wordsworth writing York