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 Reading for Realism by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book The Constitutional Jurisprudence of the Federal Republic of Germany by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book Backward Glances by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book States of Imagination by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book Emergent Forms of Life and the Anthropological Voice by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book One and Five Ideas by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book Adiós Muchachos by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book Now that the audience is assembled by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book Dead Subjects by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book Flame Wars by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book Zhang Hongtu by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book Hold It Against Me by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book Mathematics, Science, and Postclassical Theory by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book Isonomia and the Origins of Philosophy by Mary Ann O'Farrell
Cover of the book Framed 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