Atonement and Self-Sacrifice in Nineteenth-Century Narrative

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, British, Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science
Cover of the book Atonement and Self-Sacrifice in Nineteenth-Century Narrative by Jan-Melissa Schramm, Cambridge University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Jan-Melissa Schramm ISBN: 9781139508254
Publisher: Cambridge University Press Publication: June 21, 2012
Imprint: Cambridge University Press Language: English
Author: Jan-Melissa Schramm
ISBN: 9781139508254
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication: June 21, 2012
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Language: English

Jan-Melissa Schramm explores the conflicted attitude of the Victorian novel to sacrifice, and the act of substitution on which it depends. The Christian idea of redemption celebrated the suffering of the innocent: to embrace a life of metaphorical self-sacrifice was to follow in the footsteps of Christ's literal Passion. Moreover, the ethical agenda of fiction relied on the expansion of sympathy which imaginative substitution was seen to encourage. But Victorian criminal law sought to calibrate punishment and culpability as it repudiated archaic models of sacrifice that scapegoated the innocent. The tension between these models is registered creatively in the fiction of novelists such as Dickens, Gaskell and Eliot, at a time when acts of Chartist protest, national sacrifices made during the Crimean War, and the extension of the franchise combined to call into question what it means for one man to 'stand for', and perhaps even 'die for', another.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Jan-Melissa Schramm explores the conflicted attitude of the Victorian novel to sacrifice, and the act of substitution on which it depends. The Christian idea of redemption celebrated the suffering of the innocent: to embrace a life of metaphorical self-sacrifice was to follow in the footsteps of Christ's literal Passion. Moreover, the ethical agenda of fiction relied on the expansion of sympathy which imaginative substitution was seen to encourage. But Victorian criminal law sought to calibrate punishment and culpability as it repudiated archaic models of sacrifice that scapegoated the innocent. The tension between these models is registered creatively in the fiction of novelists such as Dickens, Gaskell and Eliot, at a time when acts of Chartist protest, national sacrifices made during the Crimean War, and the extension of the franchise combined to call into question what it means for one man to 'stand for', and perhaps even 'die for', another.

More books from Cambridge University Press

Cover of the book The Battle of Jutland by Jan-Melissa Schramm
Cover of the book The Regulatory Aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis by Jan-Melissa Schramm
Cover of the book Essential Epidemiology by Jan-Melissa Schramm
Cover of the book Neurolaw and Responsibility for Action by Jan-Melissa Schramm
Cover of the book Jurist in Context by Jan-Melissa Schramm
Cover of the book Late Modern English Syntax by Jan-Melissa Schramm
Cover of the book The Economics of World War I by Jan-Melissa Schramm
Cover of the book Franz Kafka in Context by Jan-Melissa Schramm
Cover of the book The Cambridge Companion to Nathaniel Hawthorne by Jan-Melissa Schramm
Cover of the book The Transformation of American International Power in the 1970s by Jan-Melissa Schramm
Cover of the book An Institutional Approach to the Responsibility to Protect by Jan-Melissa Schramm
Cover of the book Gender and Timebound Commandments in Judaism by Jan-Melissa Schramm
Cover of the book Small Arms Survey 2013 by Jan-Melissa Schramm
Cover of the book The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rome by Jan-Melissa Schramm
Cover of the book Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe by Jan-Melissa Schramm
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy