Beautiful Boredom : Idleness and Feminine Self-Realization in the Victorian Novel

Maynard, Lee Anna

McFarland & Co Inc（2009/10発売）

• 製本 Paperback:紙装版/ペーパーバック版／ページ数 198 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9780786445554
• DDC分類 823.809353

Full Description

This volume explores boredom as a possible force for good in the Victorian novel. In Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre (1847), George Eliot's Middlemarch (1871-72), and Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady (1881), boredom is an important means through which female characters are able to achieve a greater sense of self-awareness. In her discussion of these works, the author examines both the deleterious and restorative aspects of boredom and shows how this subtle theme has continued to be used by more modern authors.

Contents

Table of Contents

Preface: Discovering the Boring     

Introduction     

1. Avoiding the Boring: Boredom, Beauty, and Narrative in Jane Eyre     

2. The Complexion of Boredom in Middlemarch     

3. Life on a Grecian Urn: Boredom, Beauty, and Stasis in The Portrait of a Lady     

4. "The Proper Stuff of Fiction"—A Look Forward     

Postscript: Boredom's Beauty: Victorian Visual Representations of a Pervasive Mental State     

Works Cited     

Index