Is Life Worth Living? 1

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Is Life Worth Living? 1 Is Life Worth Living? 1 A free download from http://manybooks.net Is Life Worth Living? Project Gutenberg's Is Life Worth Living?, by William Hurrell Mallock This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re−use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: Is Life Worth Living? Author: William Hurrell Mallock Release Date: December 2, 2005 [EBook #17201] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO−8859−1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? *** Produced by David Garcia, Stacy Brown Thellend and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? BY WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK Is Life Worth Living? 2 AUTHOR OF 'THE NEW REPUBLIC' ETC. * * * * * 'Man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain.' 'How dieth the wise man? As the fool.... That which befalleth the sons of men befalleth the beasts, even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth so dieth the other, yea they have all one breath; so that man hath no preeminence above a beast; for all is vanity.' '[Greek: talaipôros egô anthrôpos, tis me rudetai ek tou sômatos tou thanatou toutou];' * * * * * NEW YORK G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS 182 Fifth Avenue 1879 I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK TO JOHN RUSKIN _TO JOHN RUSKIN._ My dear Mr. Ruskin,−−You have given me very great pleasure by allowing me to inscribe this book to you, and for two reasons; for I have two kinds of acknowledgment that I wish to make to you−−first, that of an intellectual debtor to a public teacher; secondly, that of a private friend to the kindest of private friends. The tribute I have to offer you is, it is true, a small one; and it is possibly more blessed for me to give than it is for you to receive it. In so far, at least, as I represent any influence of yours, you may very possibly not think me a satisfactory representative. But there is one fact−−and I will lay all the stress I can on it−−which makes me less diffident than I might be, in offering this book either to you or to the world generally. The import of the book is independent of the book itself, and of the author of it; nor do the arguments it contains stand or fall with my success in stating them; and these last at least I may associate with your name. They are not mine. I have not discovered or invented them. They are so obvious that any one who chooses may see them; and I have been only moved to meddle with them, because, from being so obvious, it seems that no one will so much as deign to look at them, or at any rate to put them together with any care or completeness. They might be before everybody's eyes; but instead they are under everybody's feet. My occupation has been merely to kneel in the mud, and to pick up the truths that are being trampled into it, by a headstrong and uneducated generation. With what success I have done this, it is not for me to judge. But though I cannot be confident of the value of what I have done, I am confident enough of the value of what I have tried to do. From a literary point of view many faults may be found with me. There may be faults yet deeper, to which possibly I shall have to plead guilty. I may−−I cannot tell−−have unduly emphasized some points, and not put enough emphasis on others. I may be convicted−−nothing is more likely−−of many verbal inconsistencies. But let the arguments I have done my best to embody be taken as a whole, and they have a vitality that does not depend upon me; nor can they be proved false, because my ignorance or weakness may here or there have associated them with, or illustrated them by, a falsehood. I am not myself conscious of any such falsehoods in my book; but if such are pointed out to me, I shall do my best to correct them. If what I have done prove not worth correction, others coming after me will be preferred before me, and are sure before long to address themselves successfully to the same task in which I perhaps have failed. What indeed can we each of us look for but a large measure of CHAPTER I. 3 failure, especially when we are moving not with the tide but against it−−when the things we wrestle with are principalities and powers, and spiritual stupidity in high places−−and when we are ourselves partly weakened by the very influences against which we are struggling? But this is not all. There is in the way another difficulty. Writing as the well−wishers of truth and goodness, we find, as the world now stands, that our chief foes are they of our own household. The insolence, the ignorance, and the stupidity of the age has embodied itself, and found its mouthpiece, in men who are personally the negations of all that they represent theoretically. We have men who in private are full of the most gracious modesty, representing in their philosophies the most ludicrous arrogance; we have men who practise every virtue themselves, proclaiming the principles of every vice to others; we have men who have mastered many kinds of knowledge, acting on the world only as embodiments of the completest and most pernicious ignorance. I have had occasion to deal continually with certain of these by name. With the exception of one−−who has died prematurely, whilst this book was in the press−−those I have named oftenest are still living. Many of them probably are known to you personally, though none of them are so known to me; and you will appreciate the sort of difficulty I have felt, better than I can express it. I can only hope that as the falsehood of their arguments cannot blind any of us to their personal merits, so no intellectual demerits in my case will be prejudicial to the truth of my arguments. To me the strange thing is that such arguments should have to be used all; and perhaps a thing stranger still that it should fall to me to use them−−to me, an outsider in philosophy, in literature, and in theology. But the justification of my speaking is that there is any opening for me to speak; and others must be blamed, not I, if the lyre so long divine Degenerates into hands like mine. At any rate, however all this may be, what I here inscribe to you, my friend and teacher, I am confident is not unworthy of you. It is not what I have done; it is what I have tried to do. As such I beg you to accept it, and to believe me still, though now so seldom near you, Your admiring and affectionate friend, W.H. MALLOCK. P.S.−−Much of the substance of the following book you have seen already, in two Essays of mine that were published in the 'Contemporary Review,' and in five Essays that were published in the 'Nineteenth Century.' It had at one time been my intention, by the kindness of the respective Editors, to have reprinted these Essays in their original form. But there was so much to add, to omit, to rearrange, and to join together, that I have found it necessary to rewrite nearly the whole; and thus you will find the present volume virtually new. Torquay, _May, 1879_. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE NEW IMPORT OF THE QUESTION. PAGE The question may seem vague and useless; but if we consider its real meaning we shall see that it is not so 1 In the present day it has acquired a new importance 2 Its exact meaning. It does not question the fact of human happiness 3 CHAPTER II. 4 But the nature of happiness, and the permanence of its basis 4 For what we call the higher happiness is essentially a complex thing 5 We cannot be sure that all its elements are permanent 7 Without certain of its elements it has been declared by the wisest men to be valueless 8 And it is precisely the elements in question that modern thought is eliminating 11 It is contended that they have often been eliminated before; and that yet the worth of life has not suffered 13 But this contention is entirely false. They were never before eliminated as modern thought is eliminating them now 17 The present age can find no genuine parallels in the past 19 Its position is made peculiar by three facts 19 Firstly, by the existence of Christianity 19 Secondly, the insignificance to which science has reduced the earth 23 Thirdly, the intense self−consciousness that has been developed in the modern world 25 It is often said that a parallel to our present case is to be found in Buddhism 27 But this is absolutely false. Buddhist positivism is the exact reverse of Western positivism 29 In short, the life−problem of our day is distinctly a new and an as yet unanswered one 31 CHAPTER II. MORALITY AND THE PRIZE OF LIFE. The worth the positive school claim for life, is essentially a moral worth 33 As its most celebrated exponents explicitly tell us 34 This means that life contains some special prize, to which morality is the only road 34 And the value of life depends on the value of this prize 35 J.S.
Recommended publications
  • University of Southampton Research Repository
    University of Southampton Research Repository Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis and, where applicable, any accompanying data are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis and the accompanying data cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder/s. The content of the thesis and accompanying research data (where applicable) must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holder/s. When referring to this thesis and any accompanying data, full bibliographic details must be given, e.g. Alastair Paynter (2018) “The emergence of libertarian conservatism in Britain, 1867-1914”, University of Southampton, Department of History, PhD Thesis, pp. 1-187. UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON FACULTY OF HUMANITIES History The emergence of libertarian conservatism in Britain, 1867-1914 by Alastair Matthew Paynter Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy March 2018 UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON ABSTRACT FACULTY OF HUMANITIES History Doctor of Philosophy THE EMERGENCE OF LIBERTARIAN CONSERVATISM IN BRITAIN, 1867-1914 by Alastair Matthew Paynter This thesis considers conservatism’s response to Collectivism during a period of crucial political and social change in the United Kingdom and the Anglosphere. The familiar political equipoise was disturbed by the widening of the franchise and the emergence of radical new threats in the form of New Liberalism and Socialism. Some conservatives responded to these changes by emphasising the importance of individual liberty and the preservation of the existing social structure and institutions.
    [Show full text]
  • Mallock Social Philosophy Political Economy with a New Introduction by Modern History
    Mallock Social Philosophy Political Economy With a new introduction by Modern History THE LIMITS OF PURE DEMOCRACY H. Lee Cheek, Jr. W. H. Mallock With a new introduction by H. Lee Cheek, Jr. The 1910s was a decade in which theories of socialism, pacifism, and collectivism flowered. Publicists and playwrights from Sidney Webb to George Bernard Shaw expressed not just belief in “utopianism” but a vigorous assault The Limits of on the existing political and economic order. Less well known is how a group of Tory thinkers laid the foundations of a conservative counter-attack expressed with equal literary and intellectual brilliance. Foremost among them was W. H. The Limits of Mallock. In The Limits of Pure Democracy he argued that the pseudo-populist leaders of the political party system promise everything but deliver only the end of parties as such. For Mallock, what starts with populism ends in dictatorship. The Russian Revolution was simply the historical outcome of utopian socialist visions that were more dedicated to destroying the present system of things than bringing about a revitalized future. Mallock’s book explains how the modern free market succeeds through competition in increasing output, broadening occupational opportunities, and multiplying the numbers of skilled professionals. In contrast, welfare schemes serve to deepen poverty by spreading wealth so evenly that incentives to work decline and personal savings are eliminated. These arguments have become commonplace today. But at the time they PURE DEMOCRACY served as an incendiary reminder that class warfare works in both directions. PURE Mallock was a remarkably talented writer who made the case against exaggerated expectations, a nascent welfare system, and mass political parties led by oligarchs.
    [Show full text]
  • The Journal of William Morris Studies
    The Journal of William Morris Studies volume xix number 4 summer 2012 Editorial Patrick O’Sullivan 3 Obituary: Peter Preston Peter Faulkner 4 A William Morris Letter Peter Faulkner 7 Morris and Devon Great Consols Florence S. Boos & Patrick O’Sullivan 11 Morris and Pre-Raphaelitism Peter Faulkner 40 ‘And my deeds shall be remembered, and my name that once was nought’: Regin’s Role in Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs Kathleen Ullal 63 Morris’s Late Style and the Irreconcilabilities of Desire Ingrid Hanson 74 Reviews. Edited by Peter Faulkner 85 William Morris, The Wood Beyond the World, edited by Robert Boenig (Phillippa Bennett) 85 Joseph Phelan, The Music of Verse. Metrical Experiment in Nineteenth-Century Poetry (Peter Faulkner) 89 the journal of william morris studies .summer 2012 Martin Crick, The History of the William Morris Society (Martin Stott) 92 Fiona MacCarthy, The Last Pre-Raphaelite. Edward Burne-Jones and the Victo- rian Imagination (Peter Faulkner) 96 Susie Harries, Nikolaus Pevsner: The Life (John Purkis) 100 Paul Ward, Red Flag and Union Jack: Englishness, Patriotism and the British Left, 1881–1924 (Gabriel Schenk) 103 James C. Whorton, The Arsenic Century (Mike Foulkes & Patrick O’Sullivan) 105 Guidelines for Contributors 109 Notes on Contributors 111 ISSN: 1756-1353 Editor: Patrick O’Sullivan ([email protected]) Reviews Editor: Peter Faulkner ([email protected]) Designed by David Gorman ([email protected]) Printed by the Short Run Press, Exeter, UK (http://www.shortrunpress.co.uk/) All material printed (except where otherwise stated) copyright the William Mor- ris Society.
    [Show full text]
  • “A Sort of Chivalrous Conscience”
    Scientific Papers of the University of Pardubice Series C Faculty of Humanities 10 (2004) Michael M. KAYLOR ‘Tempting Suggestible Young Men’: Pater, Pedagogy, Pederasty This article considers biographical and textual materials relating to the Victorian pederastic pedagogy of Walter Pater, an Oxford don, author, and aesthetic critic. Emphasis is placed on the ways that his novel ‘Marius the Epicurean’ and essay ‘Winckelmann’ serve to elucidate this merging of pederasty and pedagogy, as well as the influence of this merging on his former student and later friend Gerard Manley Hopkins, one of the premier Victorian poets, a poet whose ‘Epithalamion’ provides the fullest Uranian encapsulation of Pater’s elaborate and decadent pedagogy. I will not sing my little puny songs. […] Therefore in passiveness I will lie still, And let the multitudinous music of the Greek Pass into me, till I am musical. (Digby Mackworth Dolben, ‘After Reading Aeschylus’)1 Puzzled by the degree of intimacy between ‘a shy, reticent scholar-artist’ and ‘a self-silenced, ascetic priest-poet’, David Anthony Downes speculates: ‘It has been frequently said that Gerard Manley Hopkins and Walter Pater were friends. The statement is a true one, though exactly what it means, perhaps, will never be known’.2 Apprehensive that such speculations might lead to elaboration on their erotic sensibilities, Linda Dowling cautions that ‘Given the fragmentary biographical materials we possess about both Hopkins and Pater, any assertion about the “homoerotic” nature of their experience or imagination may seem at best 1 The Poems of Digby Mackworth Dolben, ed. by Robert Bridges, 1st edn (London: Oxford University Press, 1911), p.23.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 What Animal?: Darwin's Displacement Of
    Notes 1 What Animal?: Darwin’s Displacement of Man 1. Jacques Derrida, ‘The Animal That Therefore I Am (More to Follow)’, Critical Inquiry 28/2 (2002): 369–418. 2. W.H. Auden, ‘Address to the Beasts’. The Faber Book of Beasts. Ed. Paul Muldoon. London: Faber & Faber, 1997. 1–3. 3. Natural History Museum London, 2008, http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/ whats-on/darwin/index.html, accessed 10.11.2009. 4. The Beagle Project, http://www.thebeagleproject.com/voyages.html, accessed 10.11.2009. 5. See Diana Donald and Jane Munroe, Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science, and the Visual Arts (New Haven, Conn. and London: Yale University Press, 2009). 6. University of Cambridge, 2009, http://www.darwin2009.cam.ac.uk/, accessed 10.11.2009. 7. A recent literary example is Will Self’s satire on primatologist discourse, in particular the work of Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall – and the sentimental idolisation of the same – in Great Apes. See Dian Fossey, Gorillas in the Mist (London: Phoenix, 2001), Jane Goodall, My Friends the Wild Chimpanzees (Washington, DC: National Geographic Society, 1967) and Will Self, Great Apes (1997, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1998). 8. Gillian Beer, Darwin’s Plots. Evolutionary Narrative in Darwin, George Eliot and Nineteenth-Century-Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, repr. 2000, 2009) and George Levine, Darwin and the Novelists. Patterns of Science in Victorian Fiction (Harvard University Press, 1988). 9. George Levine, ‘Reflections on Darwin and Darwinizing’, Victorian Studies 51.2 (2009): 223–45, 231–2. 10. Redmond O’Hanlon, Joseph Conrad and Charles Darwin: the Influence of Scientific Thought on Conrad’s Fiction (Edinburgh: Salamander, 1984), Michael Wainwright, Darwin and Faulkner’s Novels: Evolution and Southern Fiction (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
    [Show full text]
  • The Heart of Life. By: WH Mallock, in Three Volume
    DEXZ3BRQPUPQ \\ Kindle « The Heart of Life. by: W. H. Mallock, in Three Volume (Volume... Th e Heart of Life. by: W . H. Mallock, in Th ree V olume (V olume 2).: W illiam Hurrell Mallock (7 February 1849 - 2 A pril 1923) W as an English Novelist and Economics W riter. (Paperback) Filesize: 2.56 MB Reviews These sorts of ebook is the greatest ebook readily available. Sure, it can be engage in, nonetheless an interesting and amazing literature. I realized this pdf from my dad and i encouraged this pdf to learn. (Nicolette Hodkiewicz) DISCLAIMER | DMCA 7MLRJEW37MTW » Kindle > The Heart of Life. by: W. H. Mallock, in Three Volume (Volume... THE HEART OF LIFE. BY: W. H. MALLOCK, IN THREE VOLUME (VOLUME 2).: WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK (7 FEBRUARY 1849 - 2 APRIL 1923) WAS AN ENGLISH NOVELIST AND ECONOMICS WRITER. (PAPERBACK) To download The Heart of Life. by: W. H. Mallock, in Three Volume (Volume 2).: William Hurrell Mallock (7 February 1849 - 2 April 1923) Was an English Novelist and Economics Writer. (Paperback) PDF, remember to access the web link listed below and download the file or have accessibility to other information that are related to THE HEART OF LIFE. BY: W. H. MALLOCK, IN THREE VOLUME (VOLUME 2).: WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK (7 FEBRUARY 1849 - 2 APRIL 1923) WAS AN ENGLISH NOVELIST AND ECONOMICS WRITER. (PAPERBACK) ebook. Createspace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017. Paperback. Condition: New. Language: English . Brand New Book ***** Print on Demand *****.William Hurrell Mallock (7 February 1849 - 2 April 1923) was an English novelist and economics writer. Biography: A nephew of the historian Froude, he was educated privately and then at Balliol College, Oxford.
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter Four — 'A Sort of Chivalrous Conscience': Pater's Marius the Epicurean and Paederastic Pedagogy
    — Chapter Four — ‘A Sort of Chivalrous Conscience’: Pater’s Marius the Epicurean and Paederastic Pedagogy I will not sing my little puny songs. […] Therefore in passiveness I will lie still, And let the multitudinous music of the Greek Pass into me, till I am musical. (Digby Mackworth Dolben, ‘After Reading Aeschylus’)1 Puzzled by the degree of intimacy between ‘a shy, reticent scholar-artist’ and ‘a self-silenced, ascetic priest-poet’, David Anthony Downes speculates: ‘It has been frequently said that Gerard Hopkins and Walter Pater were friends. The statement is a true one, though exactly what it means, perhaps, will never be known’. 2 Apprehensive that such speculations might lead to elaboration on their erotic sensibilities, Linda Dowling cautions that, ‘given the fragmentary biographical materials we possess about both Hopkins and Pater, any assertion about the “homoerotic” nature of their experience or imagination may seem at best recklessly premature and at worst damnably presumptuous’. 3 However, since in Victorian England ‘homosexual behaviour became subject to increased legal penalties, notably by the Labouchère Amendment of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, which extended the law to cover all male homosexual acts, whether committed in public or private’, 4 expecting ‘verifiable data’ concerning their unconventional desires is the ultimate scholarly presumption. By leaving behind no journal or diary, no authorised (auto)biography, and only a few trite letters, Pater fostered that absence of directly biographical 1 The Poems of Digby Mackworth Dolben , ed. by Robert Bridges, 1 st edn (London: Oxford University Press, 1911), p.23. In the 2 nd edn (1915), this appears on p.26.
    [Show full text]
  • The Broadview Anthology of BRITISH LITERATURE Volume 5 The
    The Broadview Anthology of BRITISH LITERATURE Volume 5 The Victorian Era GENERAL EDITORS Joseph Black, University of Massachusetts Leonard Conolly, Trent University Kate Flint, Rutgers University Isobel Grundy, University of Alberta Don LePan, Broadview Press Roy Liuzza, University of Tennessee Jerome J. McGann, University of Virginia Anne Lake Prescott, Barnard College Barry V. Quails, Rutgers University Claire Waters, University of California, Davis broadview press CONTENTS PREFACE xxi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xxix THE VICTORIAN ERA xxxm A Growing Power xxxiv Grinding Mills, Grinding Poverty xxxvi Corn Laws, Potato Famine xxxvin "The Two Nations" XL The Politics of Gender XLII Empire XLIV Faith and Doubt XLVIII Victorian Domesticity Li Cultural Trends LIII Technology LVIII Cultural Identities LIX Realism ixm The Victorian Novel LXVI Poetry LXVII Drama LXVIII Prose Non-Fiction and Print Culture LXIX The English Language in the Victorian Era LXXI HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGE AND OF PRINT CULTURE LXXV THOMAS CARLYLE 1 from Sartor Resartus 4 from Book 1 (Website) Chapter 11, Perspective from Book 2 4 Chapter 6, Sorrows of Teufelsdrockh 4 Chapter 7, The Everlasting No (Website) Chapter 8, Centre of Indifference (Website) from Book 3 8 Chapter 8, Natural Supernaturalism 8 from The French Revolution (Website) Volume 1, Book 6, Chapter 6, The Fourth Estate Volume 2, Book 3, Chapter 7, Death of Mirabella Volume 3, Book 4, Chapter 7, Marie-Antoinette Volume 3, Book 7, Chapter 8, Finis from Past and Present 13 from Book 1 13 Chapter 1, Midas 13 Chapter 6, Hero-Worship
    [Show full text]
  • Alt Context 1861-1896
    1861 – Context – 168 Agnes Martin; or, the fall of Cardinal Wolsey. / Martin, Agnes.-- 8o..-- London, Oxford [printed], [1861]. Held by: British Library The Agriculture of Berkshire. / Clutterbuck, James Charles.-- pp. 44. ; 8o..-- London; Slatter & Rose: Oxford : Weale; Bell & Daldy, 1861. Held by: British Library Analysis of the history of England, (from William Ist to Henry VIIth,) with references to Hallam, Guizot, Gibbon, Blackstone, &c., and a series of questions / Fitz-Wygram, Loftus, S.C.L.-- Second ed.-- 12mo.-- Oxford, 1861 Held by: National Library of Scotland An Answer to F. Temple's Essay on "the Education of the World." By a Working Man. / Temple, Frederick, Successively Bishop of Exeter and of London, and Archbishop of Canterbury.-- 12o..-- Oxford, 1861. Held by: British Library Answer to Professor Stanley's strictures / Pusey, E. B. (Edward Bouverie), 1800-1882.-- 6 p ; 22 cm.-- [Oxford] : [s.n.], [1861] Notes: Caption title.-- Signed: E.B. Pusey Held by: Oxford Are Brutes immortal? An enquiry, conducted mainly by the light of nature into Bishop Butler's hypotheses and concessions on the subject, as given in part 1. chap. 1. of his "Analogy of Religion." / Boyce, John Cox ; Butler, Joseph, successively Bishop of Bristol and of Durham.-- pp. 70. ; 8o..-- Oxford; Thomas Turner: Boroughbridge : J. H. & J. Parker, 1861. Held by: British Library Aristophanous Ippes. The Knights of Aristophanes / with short English notes [by D.W. Turner] for the use of schools.-- 56, 58 p ; 16mo.-- Oxford, 1861 Held by: National Library of Scotland Arnold Prize Essay, 1861. The Christians in Rome during the first three centuries.
    [Show full text]
  • Evangelicalism and the Making of Same-Sex Desire
    EVANGELICALISM AND THE MAKING OF SAME-SEX DESIRE: THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF CONSTANCE MAYNARD (1849-1935) by Naomi Lloyd A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (History) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) August 2011 © Naomi Lloyd, 2011 ABSTRACT Although a devout Evangelical Anglican, living in an era that largely pre-dated the dissemination of sexological discourses of female same-sex desire, Constance Maynard, the prominent Victorian feminist and educational reformer, pursued a series of same-sex relationships. Religion is often understood to exercise a repressive influence on sexual desire. This study, however, takes as its starting point the historian of sexuality Michel Foucault‘s contention that sexual regulation produces desire rather than repressing it. It charts the role of Evangelical discourse – both regulatory and non-regulatory – in the structuring of Maynard‘s dissident sexual subjectivity. Arguing that sexuality, and female homoeroticism in particular, is crucial to an understanding of turn-of-the-century British culture, this dissertation explores transitions in Maynard‘s same-sex desire as they were occasioned by shifts in her religious subjectivity, examines the role of other cultural discourses in precipitating changes in her religious beliefs, and delineates the implications of transitions in the relationship between Evangelicalism and these other discourses for turn-of-the-century British society. A central focus of this dissertation is the discourse of modernity. Modernity is often represented as the product of the triumph of science, reason, and progress over an out-dated, irrational, repressive religion.
    [Show full text]
  • Copyrighted Material
    Contents This anthology includes extensive additional material on an accompanying website at www.wiley.com/go/victorianliterature. The table of contents lists items that appear in the book as well as those which are available online. All online materials are marked with the web icon: List of Plates and Illustrations xlii Preface xlv Abbreviations li List of Web Plates and Illustrations xlii Preface xliii Abbreviations xlix Introduction 1 Victorian Representations and Misrepresentations 1 “The Terrific Burning” 2 The Battle of the Styles 3 “The Best of Times, the Worst of Times” 4 Demographics and Underlying Fears 5 Power, Industry,COPYRIGHTED and the High Cost of Bread and MATERIAL Beer 5 The Classes and the Masses 7 The Dynamics of Gender 8 Religion and the Churches 9 Political Structures 11 Empire 12 Genres and Literary Hierarchies 12 The Fine Arts and Popular Entertainment 13 Revolutions in Mass Media and the Expansion of Print Culture 17 0002169281.INDD 7 9/25/2014 4:55:00 AM viii Part One Contexts 19 The Condition of England 21 Contents Introduction 21 1. The Victorian Social Formation 27 Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803–73): Pelham (1828) 27 From Chapter 1 27 William Cobbett (1763–1835): From Rural Rides (1830) 3 Victoria (1819–1901): From Letters (20 June, 1837) [“I am Queen”] 4 Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881): Chartism (1840) 29 From Chapter 1: “Condition-of-England Question” 29 Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881): Past and Present (1843) 30 From Book I, Chapter 1: “Midas” 30 Benjamin Disraeli (1804–81): Sybil (1845) 32 From Book 2, Chapter 5 [The
    [Show full text]
  • Old Drury Lane
    ;.;::/; OLD DRURY LANE. OLD DRURY LANE FIFTY YEfiRS' RECOLLECTIONS AUTHOR, ACTOR, AND MANAGER BY EDWARD STIRLING IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I. I ou lion CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY 1881 [All Right* Rttttvtd] CONTENTS OF VOL. I. BOOK I. PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR FROM SCHOOL-DAYS TO THE PRESENT TIME. CHAPTER PAGE 1 3 II 12 111 37 iv. ... .44 v. 55 vr 71 VII 89 VIII I ! ; ix 130 x 151 XI * '97 vi Contents. BOOK II. RECORDS OF DRURY LANE AND ITS LESSEES AND MANAGERS, WITH A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF HER MAJESTY'S OPERA. CHAPTER PAGE 1 213 II 226 III 238 iv '255 v 273 VI 289 vii 318 viii 324 ix 344 OLD DRURY LANE. BOOK I. PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AUTHOR FROM SCHOOL-DAYS TO THE PRESENT TIME. VOL. I. CHAPTER I. The Author's birthplace School-days at Southwark Southwark Fair Samuel Pepys' account Bul- lock's Booth Original Bill of 1728 Fielding and Reynolds's Great Theatrical Booth The Author's first appearance on the Stage Samuel Phelps The ' Temple of Arts ' in Catherine-street * Tom ' ' and Jerry The Brown Bear,' and its landlord, Ikey Solomons* A New Way to Pay Old Debts.' I WAS born at Thame in Oxfordshire in the year 1807, an<^ received my education at Queen Elizabeth's Latin School, South- wark, the ancient Southwark of our Saxon forefathers, a famous place for hostelries ' and inns the old ' Tabard of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Sam Weller's quar- ters, the 'White Hart' Inn, ranking first in the affection and regard of lovers of i 2 Old Drury Lane.
    [Show full text]