Telling Complexions

The Nineteenth-Century English Novel and the Blush

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, British
Cover of the book Telling Complexions by Mary Ann O'Farrell, Duke University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Mary Ann O'Farrell ISBN: 9780822378150
Publisher: Duke University Press Publication: February 14, 1997
Imprint: Duke University Press Books Language: English
Author: Mary Ann O'Farrell
ISBN: 9780822378150
Publisher: Duke University Press
Publication: February 14, 1997
Imprint: Duke University Press Books
Language: English

In Telling Complexions Mary Ann O’Farrell explores the frequent use of "the blush" in Victorian novels as a sign of characters’ inner emotions and desires. Through lively and textured readings of works by such writers as Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Dickens, and Henry James, O’Farrell illuminates literature’s relation to the body and the body’s place in culture. In the process, she plots a trajectory for the nineteenth-century novel’s shift from the practices of manners to the mode of self-consciousness.
Although the blush was used to tell the truth of character and body, O’Farrell shows how it is actually undermined as a stable indicator of character in novels such as Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, North and South, and David Copperfield. She reveals how these writers then moved on in search of other bodily indicators of mortification and desire, among them the swoon, the scar, and the blunder. Providing unique and creative insights into the constructedness of the body and its semiotic play in literature and in culture, Telling Complexions includes parallel examples of the blush in contemporary culture and describes ways that textualized bodies are sometimes imagined to resist the constraints imposed by such construction.

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

In Telling Complexions Mary Ann O’Farrell explores the frequent use of "the blush" in Victorian novels as a sign of characters’ inner emotions and desires. Through lively and textured readings of works by such writers as Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Dickens, and Henry James, O’Farrell illuminates literature’s relation to the body and the body’s place in culture. In the process, she plots a trajectory for the nineteenth-century novel’s shift from the practices of manners to the mode of self-consciousness.
Although the blush was used to tell the truth of character and body, O’Farrell shows how it is actually undermined as a stable indicator of character in novels such as Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, North and South, and David Copperfield. She reveals how these writers then moved on in search of other bodily indicators of mortification and desire, among them the swoon, the scar, and the blunder. Providing unique and creative insights into the constructedness of the body and its semiotic play in literature and in culture, Telling Complexions includes parallel examples of the blush in contemporary culture and describes ways that textualized bodies are sometimes imagined to resist the constraints imposed by such construction.

More books from Duke University Press

Cover of the book Close Reading by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book An Epistemology of the Concrete by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book Producing Bollywood by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book Beyond Civil Society by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book Culture of Class by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book Reckoning by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book Families in War and Peace by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book Socialist Realism without Shores by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book The Color of Sex by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book Henri Bergson by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book Markets of Dispossession by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book The Urban Generation by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book Sylvia Wynter by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book Never Alone, Except for Now by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book Cities Surround The Countryside by Mary Ann O'Farrell
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