Ethics and Narrative in the English Novel, 1880–1914Cambridge University Press, 2001 M02 12 - 176 pages Drawing on interdisciplinary work in the field of ethics and literature by a diverse range of thinkers, including Martha Nussbaum, Emmanuel Levinas and Paul Ricoeur, Jil Larson offers new readings of late Victorian and turn-of-the-century British fiction, she shows how ethical concepts can transform our understanding of narratives, just as narratives make possible a valuable, contextualised moral deliberation. Focusing on novels by Thomas Hardy, Sarah Grand, Olive Schreiner, Oscar Wilde, and Henry James, Larson explores the conjunction of ethics and fin-de-siècle history and culture through a consideration of what narratives from this period tell us about emotion, reason, and gender, aestheticism, and such speech acts as promising and lying. This book will be of interest to scholars of nineteenth century and modernism, and all interested in the conjunction between narrative, ethics and literary theory. |
Contents
| 1 | |
anxiety about agency at the fin de siècle | 20 |
CHAPTER 3 Emotion gender and ethics in fiction by Thomas Hardy and the New Woman writers | 44 |
chance and moral luck in A Laodicean The Mayor of Casterbridge and Tess | 64 |
aestheticizing ethics | 93 |
CHAPTER 6 Promises lies and ethical agency in Joseph Conrads Under Western Eyes | 114 |
Afterword | 137 |
Notes | 141 |
Bibliography | 165 |
Index | 173 |
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Common terms and phrases
aesthetic aestheticism anxiety about agency argues believe Cambridge century Chad chance characters choice complex concept confession conscience context critics culture desire despite discussion Dorian Gray Emmanuel Levinas emotional ethical agency ethical theory Evadne Father feeling feminist fin-de-siècle flirtation gender Gillian Beer Gosse Gosse's Haldin Hardy's fiction Hardy's novels Henchard Henry James heroine human ideas ideology Imagination influence intellectual James's Joseph Conrad Jude the Obscure Kucich Laodicean late Victorian late-century Levinas literary literature lives Love's Knowledge MacIntyre Martha Nussbaum Mayor of Casterbridge mid-Victorian Mill moral luck moral philosophy narrative narrator Nathalie Nussbaum Olive Schreiner paradox past Phillotson political promise question Razumov readers reading reason relationship responsibility revolutionaries Ricoeur Sarah Grand Schreiner sense sexual siècle social story Strether telling Tess thinking Thomas Hardy traditional truth understanding University Press Victorian morality Victorian period Virtue Western Eyes Wilde's Woman novels Woman writing women York