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The Effective Protagonist in the Nineteenth-Century
British Novel:
Scott, Brontë, Eliot, Wilde
By Terence Dawson
Hardcover, 300 pages, Aldershot
& Burlington: Ashgate, 2004, ISBN: 075464135X
The Effective Protagonist in the Nineteenth-Century British Novel
is an experiment in post-Jungian literary criticism and methodology.
Its primary aim is to challenge current views about the correlation
between narrative structure, gender, and the governing psychological
dilemma in four nineteenth-century British novels. The overarching
argument is that the opening situation in a novel represents an
implicit challenge facing not the obvious hero/heroine but the individual
that Terence Dawson defines as the 'effective protagonist.' To illustrate
his claim, Dawson pairs two sets of novels with unexpectedly comparable
dilemmas: Ivanhoe with The Picture of Dorian Gray and Wuthering
Heights with Silas Marner. In all four novels, the effective protagonist
is an apparently minor figure whose crucial function in the ordering
of the events has been overlooked. Rereading these well-known texts
in relation to hitherto neglected characters uncovers startling
new issues at their heart and demonstrates innovative ways of exploring
both narrative and literary tradition.
'In unusually strong, jargon-free
prose, Dawson offers an innovative model for psychological approaches
to literary interpretation, a new look at gender-based criticism,
and startlingly original readings of four canonical British novels.'
(George P. Landow, Professor of English and Art History,
Brown University)
Introduction
Part 1 Anima Possession:
1. 'A victim of his own contending passions': Ivanhoe, Cedric
of Rotherwood, and the logic of romance;
2. 'Man's deeper nature is soon found out': psychological
typology, the Puer Aeternus, and fear of the feminine in
the The Picture of Dorian Gray;
Part 2 Animus Possession
3. 'An oppression past explaining': Wuthering Heights and
the struggle for deliverance from the father;
4. 'Light enough to trusten by': structure and experience
in Silas Marner.
Bibliography;
Index.
This book is available at Amazon.com
and Amazon.co.uk
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