Illegitimate Celebrity in the British Long Eighteenth Century Melissa Wehler

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Illegitimate Celebrity in the British Long Eighteenth Century Melissa Wehler Duquesne University Duquesne Scholarship Collection Electronic Theses and Dissertations Spring 2013 Illegitimate Celebrity in the British Long Eighteenth Century Melissa Wehler Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/etd Recommended Citation Wehler, M. (2013). Illegitimate Celebrity in the British Long Eighteenth Century (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/1347 This Immediate Access is brought to you for free and open access by Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Duquesne Scholarship Collection. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ILLEGITIMATE CELEBRITY IN THE BRITISH LONG EIGHTEENTH CENTURY A Dissertation Submitted to the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts Duquesne University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Melissa Wehler May 2013 Copyright by Melissa A. Wehler 2013 ILLEGITIMATE CELEBRITY IN THE BRITISH LONG EIGHTEENTH CENTURY By Melissa Wehler Approved March 22, 2013 _____________________________ _____________________________ Laura Engel, Ph.D. Anne Brannen, Ph.D. Associate Professor of English Associate Professor of English (Dissertation Director) (Committee Member) _____________________________ _____________________________ Susan K. Howard, Ph.D. Magali Cornier Michael, Ph.D. Associate Professor of English Professor of English (Committee Member) (Chair, Department of English) _____________________________ James Swindal, Ph.D. Dean, McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts Professor of Philosophy iii ABSTRACT ILLEGITIMATE CELEBRITY IN THE BRITISH LONG EIGHTEENTH CENTURY By Melissa Wehler May 2013 Dissertation Supervised by Professor Laura Engel In the discussions about contemporary celebrities, the femme fatale, the bad boy, the child star, and the wannabe have become accepted and even celebrated figures. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, however, actors and actresses who challenged acceptable strategies for celebrity behavior were often punished by exile, debt, disgrace, and humiliation. Some performers even faced a veritable textual and historical oblivion. Illegitimate Celebrity considers the careers of Dorothy Jordan, William Henry West Betty, Edmund Kean, and Margaret Agnes Bunn, and offers a historical genealogy of ―illegitimate‖ performers who dared to break with social convention and struggled to define and redefine themselves according to strict social codes that dictated their behavior both onstage and off. By examining celebrity productions, portraits, caricatures, and performances as elements to producing celebrity, I iv demonstrate how the audiences used these public figures to create complex narratives regarding class, femininity, masculinity, marriage, nationalism, among others. Ultimately, the study of illegitimate celebrity reveals the role of celebrity in shaping these discursive structures and provides an important history for modern narratives regarding the role of celebrity in society. v DEDICATION I would like to dedicate this dissertation to my own Great Illegitimates!! David, Kathy, Nikki, Adam, and Matthew vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to begin by expressing my sincere gratitude to the McAnulty College and Graduate School for awarding me the 2011-2012 Dissertation Fellowship. The College‘s funding of the project was invaluable to its completion. Over the past six years, I have been fortunate to work with Laura Engel, an outstanding scholar, teacher, and person. The first chapter of this dissertation began in Laura‘s course on Gothic Bodies transformed into an article under her careful supervision in an independent study course before finally becoming a dissertation chapter. Along with Laura, my dissertation committee, Anne Brannen and Susan K. Howard, have also helped to spread and grow this project through their encouragement and feedback, and I would like to sincerely thank them both for shaping the piece. I am sincerely indebted to these three, amazing scholars, teachers, and women. Like all dissertations, this one would not be possible without the support of caring and thoughtful advisors, and I have been fortunate to have so many people who have helped to shape me as an academic and a person. I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to Linda Roth, my high school English teacher, who encouraged me to pursue teaching English as a career through her hard work and dedication to her students. I would also like to acknowledge Kristina Straub, my professor and mentor from Carnegie Mellon University, who first introduce me to the eighteenth century and inspired my passion for fops and macaronis and all things drama. I would also like to thank the outstanding faculty in the Department of English who both formally and informally mentored me not as a student, but as a future colleague. I am especially vii grateful to Daniel P. Watkins who acted as an informal advisor and mentor on the project, and Frederick Newberry whose honest encouragement significantly helped with the completion of the work. I would also be remiss if I did not thank Laura Callanan for her feedback and support during the early stages of the dissertation. During my time at Duquesne, I have been fortunate to be surrounded by some of the most exciting thinkers I have ever met. Without the support of my amazing colleagues and dear friends, Suzanne Cook, Lacy Cunningham, Maureen Gallagher, Megan Kelly, Christopher Hayes, Marcie Panutsos, Amy Criniti Phillips, Timothy Ruppert, and Jason Vanfosson, this project would not have been possible. I would also like to especially thank Maggie Hannan for listening to the many different versions of the project, and Katherine Richards for reading all of them. Finally, I would like to acknowledge my family. My parents, David and Kathy, my sister Nikki, my brother, Adam, and my husband, Matthew, have been a constant source of support and encouragement. Thank you, mom, dad, Nikki and Adam, for being my ―wings,‖ for carrying me when I needed carrying and for flying with me when it was time to fly. Finally, to my brilliant, amazing, and patient husband, Matthew, without whom this project would have been impossible, thank you for changing your direction from thusly to thusly. viii Table of Contents Page Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iv Dedication .......................................................................................................................... vi Acknolwedgement ............................................................................................................ vii Introduction ........................................................................................................................ xi 0.1 Rakes to Gentlemen Turned: Illegitimacy and the Historical Context .................. xiv 0.2 Illegitimate Studies: Celebrity Studies as a Critical History ................................ xvii 0.3 My Illegitimates: Dorothy Jordan, Edmund Kean, and William Henry West Betty .................................................................................................................................... xxix 0.4 Illegitimate Subjects: Chapter Summaries .......................................................... xxxii 0.5 An Illegitimate Future ......................................................................................... xxxv Chapter One: The Naturally Unnatural Dorothy Jordan ......................................................1 1.1 The Highbrow Celebrity: Jordan and the Portraitists ............................................... 4 1.2 The Public Jordan: Celebrity and Caricature in the Late Eighteenth Century ........ 14 1.3 The Lady‘s Face: The Delusion of Celebrity .......................................................... 17 1.4 The Crack‘d Jordan: Actresses and Chamber Pots ................................................. 28 1.5 ―I Strumpet, Creature, Pickle‖: Jordan as the Royal Family‘s Burning Shame ..... 39 1.6 The Actress‘ Thighs and Diseased Body Politic..................................................... 45 1.7 Jordan‘s Highbrow/Lowbrow Celebrity ................................................................. 50 1.8 Dueling Legacies: Reconstructing a Celebrity Image ............................................ 52 Chapter Two: I-doll-ized: William Henry West Betty and the Appeal of Thingness .......63 2.1 A Person So Adored: The Cult of Betty ................................................................. 69 2.2 An Image of a God: The Betty-Doll and the Consequences of I-doll Play ............ 81 2.3 Obsessively Worshipping a Thing: The ―It‖ Effect ................................................ 97 2.4 An Incorporeal Phantom: The Idol‘s Afterimage ................................................. 105 Chapter Three: Edmund Kean‘s Monstrous Celebrity .....................................................109 3.1 (Un)Covering History: Cooke and the King of the Yankee Doodles. .................. 112 3.2 Cooke and Kean: The Influence of the Undead .................................................... 124 3.3 The Boston ―Incident‖ and Peter Public ............................................................... 136 3.4 Haunted Kings and Kingdoms: Ghosting, Nationalism, and the Gothic .............. 147 3.5 (Re)covering History: Kean, Cooke, and a New Monument
Recommended publications
  • William Vincent Wallace Bicentenary Festival Programme, National Concert Hall, 15 October 2012
    Technological University Dublin ARROW@TU Dublin Concert Programmes Conservatory of Music and Drama 2012-10-15 William Vincent Wallace Bicentenary Festival Programme, National Concert Hall, 15 October 2012 Una Hunt Dr DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://arrow.tudublin.ie/aaconmuscp Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Recommended Citation William Vincent Wallace Bicentenary Festival (National Concert Hall Dublin, 15 October 2012) This Other is brought to you for free and open access by the Conservatory of Music and Drama at ARROW@TU Dublin. It has been accepted for inclusion in Concert Programmes by an authorized administrator of ARROW@TU Dublin. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License William Vincent Wallace Bicentenary Festival Day Souvenir Programme Monday 15 October 2012 including the launch of the 1854 Commemorative Music Album and CD Respectfully dedicated to The Ladies of the United States by William Vincent Wallace Facsimile edited by Úna Hunt ÚNA HUNT, piano MÁIRE FLAVIN, mezzo-soprano THE ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY OF MUSIC VOCAL TRIO Limited edition Wallace Facsimile Music Album and CD available from The Music Box at the National Concert Hall and from the RTÉ online shop, www.rte.ie/shop. This publication is generously supported by the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. Welcome he National Concert Hall is delighted to have the opportunity to honour the Irish composer William Vincent Wallace with a day of festivities celebrating the bi-centenary of his birth.
    [Show full text]
  • This Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation Has Been Downloaded from the King’S Research Portal At
    This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Repertory and rivalry : opera and the Second Covent Garden Theatre, 1830-56. Dideriksen, Gabriella The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 10. Oct. 2021 Repertory and Rivalry: Opera at the Second Covent Garden Theatre, 1830 to 1856 Gabriella Dlderlksen PhD, Historical Musicology King's College London, University of London June 1997 Abstract Victorian London has hitherto frequently been regarded as an operatic backwater without original musical or theatrical talent, and has accordingly been considered only marginally important to the history of 19th-century opera in general.
    [Show full text]
  • Theorizing Audience and Spectatorial Agency
    Swarthmore College Works English Literature Faculty Works English Literature 2014 Theorizing Audience and Spectatorial Agency Betsy Bolton Swarthmore College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-english-lit Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Let us know how access to these works benefits ouy Recommended Citation Betsy Bolton. (2014). "Theorizing Audience and Spectatorial Agency". Oxford Handbook Of The Georgian Theatre, 1737-1832. 31-52. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199600304.013.012 https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-english-lit/188 This work is brought to you for free by Swarthmore College Libraries' Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Literature Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CHAPTER 2 THEORIZING AUDIENCE AND SPECTATORIAL AGENCY BETSY BOLTON Audiences are a problem, and Georgian theatre audiences are more of a problem than many.' Records may yet yield more than we know, but there remain many questions about Georgian audiences that we may never be able to answer. We don’t know how a statistically significant sample of individual spectators responded to topical allusions or scandalous references. We don’t know how permeable in practice were the social boundaries attributed to pit, box, and gallery. We still don’t even know what constituted a ‘good’ house or what defined a ‘brilliant’ audience—though Judith Milhous notes that some of this evidence lurks in the highly
    [Show full text]
  • Spectacular Disappearances: Celebrity and Privacy, 1696-1801
    Revised Pages Spectacular DiSappearanceS Revised Pages Revised Pages Spectacular Disappearances Celebrity and Privacy, 1696– 1801 Julia H. Fawcett University of Michigan Press Ann Arbor Revised Pages Copyright © 2016 by Julia H. Fawcett All rights reserved This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publisher. Published in the United States of America by the University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America c Printed on acid- free paper 2019 2018 2017 2016 4 3 2 1 A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978– 0- 472– 11980– 6 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 978– 0- 472– 12180– 9 (e-book) Revised Pages Acknowledgments I have often wondered if my interest in authors who wrote themselves in order to obscure themselves stems from my own anxieties about the permanence of the printed word—m y own longing (that I imagine everyone shares?) for words that linger on the page for a moment only and then— miraculously, mercifully— disappear before their inadequacies can be exposed. I think I will always harbor this anxiety, but I have been blessed with mentors, colleagues, friends, and family members who have known how to couch their criticism in kindness and without whom I could never have summoned the courage to keep this work up or to set these words down. The germs for this book’s ideas began many years ago, when, as an under- graduate at Harvard, I stumbled somewhat accidentally (to fulfill a require- ment) into Lynn Festa’s course on “Sex and Sensibility during the Enlighten- ment.” Thank goodness for requirements.
    [Show full text]
  • Sarah Siddons As Lady Macbeth / Patricia T
    Lehigh University Lehigh Preserve Theses and Dissertations 1974 Sarah Siddons as Lady Macbeth / Patricia T. Michael Lehigh University Follow this and additional works at: https://preserve.lehigh.edu/etd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Michael, Patricia T., "Sarah Siddons as Lady Macbeth /" (1974). Theses and Dissertations. 4414. https://preserve.lehigh.edu/etd/4414 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Lehigh Preserve. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Lehigh Preserve. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SA.RAH SIDDONS AS LADY MACBETH by Patricia T. Michael A Thesis Presented to the Graduate Committee of Lehigh University in Candidacy for the Degree of Master of Arts in English Lehigh University 1974 This thesis 1s accepted and approved in partial ru1- f111rncnt of tl1e requirements for the degree of ?-1aster of Arts. ~,} / g. H Chairman o , ii \ AC KNOW LEDGMEN'I' The completion of this thesis would not have been possible without the contstant advice and assistance of Professor Fraink S. Hook, who I deeply respect for his wisdom and knowledge, and admire for his patience and understanding. • • • lll ,A' Table of Contento Page 11 Certificate of Approval . • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 111 Acknowledgment • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • iv Table of Contents . • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 1 Abstract • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 2 Chapter I: Before Sarah Siddons • • • • • • • • • • 11 Chapter II: Mrs. Siddons on Stage • • • • • • • • • • 28 Act I. Sc. V • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 34 Act I. Sc. vi • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Act I. Sc. Vll • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 35 38 Act II. Sc. ii • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 4:J- Act III. Sc. ll • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 48 Act III. Sc. lV • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 45 Act V.
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter 1: the Seventeenth Century Actresses
    Notes CHAPTER 1: THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ACTRESSES 1. John Genest, Some Account of the English Stage from the Restoration to 1830, vol. I (Bath, 1832), p. 37. 2. Dr John Doran, Their Majesties' Servants: Annals of the English Stage, vol. I (London: William H. Allen & Co., 1864), p. 60. 3. E. K. Chambers, Modern Language Review, XI (October 1916) 466. Also, see Chambers's book The Medieval Stage, vol. II (London, 1948), p. 409. 4. As quoted in Genest, vol. I, p. 37 from Richard Brome's The Court Beggar (1632) and James Shirley's The Ball (1639) in which Freshwater, speaking of the plays in Paris, says, 'Yet the women are the best actors, they Play their own parts, a thing much desir'd in England.' 5. Thornton Shirley Graves, 'Women of the Pre-Restoration Stage,' Studies in Philology, XXII, No.2 (1925) 189, 192-3. The record on which Graves draws is Reyher's Les Masques Anglais, p. 25. 6. Robert Latham and William Matthews (eds), The Diary of Samuel Pepys, vol. I (London, 1970), p. 224. 7. John Downes, Roscius Anglicanus (London, 1708), p. 19. 8. Pepys, vol. II, p. 7. 9. Colley Cibber, An Apology for His Life (London, 1740), p. 55. 10. Pepys, vol. IX, p. 425. 11. Downes, p. 19. 12. She was introduced to the world by means of a hilarious prologue especially written by Thomas Jordan to show what a ridiculous figure the boy- actor had been cutting: Henry Wisham Lanier, The First English Actresses: 1660-1700 (New York, 1930), p. 31.
    [Show full text]
  • William Vincent Wallace Is a French Work, Issued by Arthur Pougin in 1866 (W
    WI1,LIAhI VINCENT WALLACE F~oma Photograph 111 the Bl~tisiillu~euol < - ' c".* A MEMOIR BY W. H. GRATTAN FLOOD, AUTHOR OF " A History of Irish Music," etc. Published at the Offices of " The Waterford News," 49 and 50, O'Connell Street, Waterford 1912 -*- .-.- +- " -,. , . QI-i-^tC ~&At\~,&ri172. inp~;::~;?+bh'%:J FOREWORD. As the only existing biography of William Vincent Wallace is a French work, issued by Arthur Pougin in 1866 (W. Vincent Wallace dtude biograPhique et critique), at Paris, and now out of print, no apology is needed for the present brochure. Strange as it may seem, it is none the less true that no English memoir of the Composer of " Maritana " has hitherto been attempted. On this account, the present centenary year of the birth of Wallace seems an appropriate occasion to supply this deficiency. I have therefore pieced together the tangled skeins in hisromantic biography, and have endeavoured to present the facts of his career in chronological order in the following pages. ~brmuch valuable help I must express my indebtedness to Mr. Edmund Downey, Mr. W. J. Lawrence, and the Rev. Superioress of the Ursuline Convent, Thurles. W. H. GRATTAN FLOOD. Enniscorthy, August, 1912. William Vincent Wallace. HE City of Waterford can boast of being the T birthplace of many famous personages. At once the names of Luke Wadding, Peter White, John Roberts, Bishop Comerford, Charles Kean, Sir Thomas Wyse, 'Thomas Francis Meagher, Archbishop Kirby, and Edmund Leamy occur to the mind. To this list must be added the name of William Vincent VJallace, whose centenary is about to be celebrated.
    [Show full text]
  • Eighteenth-Century Theatre
    -,,,,-«- o~~ J:-\\u~\--ca...~~ \.\'b~v,\ o~ ~~¥~. £,c).. ~V\ ~~t'\' ~yo~"'. \~o....5.. f'.J€'-'.J '\0'<'<- '. a~~v-cJ l.)~\--.)Q.~' \-", ?-C-,,~) z..oO\. ~8~ EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY THEATRE ~~ PETER HOLLAN'D AND MICHAEL PATTERSON AT first sight the eighteenth century appears to be the least interesting and signi- ficant period of theatre history" since the Middle Ages, Some histories of theatre virtually omit it, while others treat it as some sort of connecting corridor from the splendours of the Renaissance to the innovations of the nineteenth century, essen- tial but not worth lingering in. Indeed the eighteenth century produced few great dramatists; several comic talents perhaps: Sheridan and Goldsmith, Marivaux and Beaumarchais, Goldoni and Gozzi, Holberg and Lessing. But an anthology of world drama could legiti- mately be published without including the works of any of these. Only in the emergent theatre of late eighteenth-century Germany can one point to the major dramas of Goethe and Schiller. Nor could the eighteenth century boast of import- ant innovations in theatre technology, except towards the end of the century with the replacement of candle-light by oil-lamps. What was significant about the theatre of the eighteenth century, however, is that it developed in Continental Europe a function in society unparalleled since its role in ancient Greece. From being an entertainment at court or in the market- place it became a political forum for the bourgeoisie, a focus for national identity and even revolution. It moved from being formal and stylized, or from being vulgar and coarse, to a new level of realism; the stage began to search for authen- ticity and newly to mirror the everyday lives of the spectators.
    [Show full text]
  • George William Alberti's Life and Work (1724-1758)
    George William Alberti’s Life and Work (1724-1758) By Dr. Michel Weyer A Day of Deep Satisfaction for a Young Author July 19, 1751 was about to become a day of deep satisfaction for George William Alberti, a nowadays nearly forgotten eighteenth-century-German clergyman. Actually, until the depiction of his life, ideas, and work as outlined in the following pages, our knowledge of him was less than sketchy and vague. Given the absence of any serious biographical study, one usually had to content oneself with the terse indication of a few old dictionaries. As a member of that social group of deutsche Gelehrte, as were formerly called the academic educated people in Germany,1 Alberti’s name appears indeed in some of the old standard reference books devoted to such “German learned men.” Yet, the biographical and bibliographical information there given on our author never exceeds a few lines.2 What is more, these articles are not always free of errors.3 Alberti was born in 1724 in Osterode, a German city with a rich historical past, located between Hanover and Goettingen, in Low Saxony.4 By the time of his birth, the theological and cultural struggle between Pietism and Enlightenment in Germany had reached its climax. It was, indeed, just one year ago that Christian Wolff, the celebrated disciple of the philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, had been banished from Halle, the academic strong- hold of Prussian Pietism, as a result of violent theological disputes.5 After more than a decade of absence from his birthplace, due firstly to his education at the University of Goettingen, and to a sojourn in England which followed immediately that formative period, the young Alberti was now living again in Osterode.
    [Show full text]
  • Hamlet's Age and the Earl of Southampton
    Hamlet’s Age and the Earl of Southampton Hamlet’s Age and the Earl of Southampton By Lars Kaaber Hamlet’s Age and the Earl of Southampton By Lars Kaaber This book first published 2017 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2017 by Lars Kaaber All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-9143-6 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-9143-1 To Mikkel and Simon, two brilliant actors who can certainly do justice to Hamlet (and bring him to justice as well). TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface ........................................................................................................ ix Part I ............................................................................................................ 1 Hamlet’s Age Part II ......................................................................................................... 85 Hamlet and the Earl of Southampton Bibliography ............................................................................................ 147 Index ........................................................................................................ 153 PREFACE As Stuart M. Kurland quite correctly has observed, critics
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter Three Operatic Fashion: Do the Prince and the Princess Live Happily Ever After? in “A Mother,”Mrs. Kearney Recalled
    Lin 59 Chapter Three Operatic Fashion: Do the Prince and the Princess Live Happily Ever After? When she came to the age of marriage she was sent out to many houses where her playing and ivory manners were much admired. She sat amid the chilly circle of her accomplishments, waiting for some suitors to brave it and offer her a brilliant life. But the young men whom she met were ordinary and she gave them no encouragement, trying to console her romantic desires by eating a great deal of Turkish Delight in secret. —“A Mother”(D 136) Would he never get a home of his own? ... He might yet able to settle down in some snug corner and live happily if he could only come across some good simple-minded girl with a little of the ready. —“Two Gallants”(D 58) In “A Mother,”Mrs. Kearney recalled her maiden expectation to have “some suitors to brave it”(D 136; my emphasis). The pronoun “it”in her romantic desires certainly referred to a marriage proposal. In “Two Gallants,”Lenehar wished to settle down and he meant a happy marriage. First, it was the marriage that these two female and male characters desired. Then, after the unions, they wished that the spouse could offer them “a brilliant”and “a little of ready”life. Over and over again, Joyce depicts the phenomenon that men and women have certain romantic expectations toward marriage and the good lives guaranteed by marriage in Dubliners. However, do the romantic expectations truly promise better living standards and wealth after marriage? The answer was actually “no.”Therefore, if Dubliners have expectations, theirs are certainly false ones rather than great ones.
    [Show full text]
  • Romantic Sobriety Wang, Orrin N
    Romantic Sobriety Wang, Orrin N. C. Published by Johns Hopkins University Press Wang, Orrin N. C. Romantic Sobriety: Sensation, Revolution, Commodification, History. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011. Project MUSE. doi:10.1353/book.1766. https://muse.jhu.edu/. For additional information about this book https://muse.jhu.edu/book/1766 [ Access provided at 2 Oct 2021 11:55 GMT with no institutional affiliation ] This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Romantic Sobriety This page intentionally left blank Romantic Sobriety Sensation, Revolution, Commodifi cation, History ORRIN N. C. WANG The Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore © 2011 The Johns Hopkins University Press All rights reserved. Published 2011 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1 The Johns Hopkins University Press 2715 North Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363 www.press.jhu.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wang, Orrin Nan Chung, 1957– Romantic sobriety : sensation, revolution, commodifi cation, history / Orrin N. C. Wang. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-1-4214-0066-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 1-4214-0066-9 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Romanticism. 2. Senses and sensation in literature. 3. Marxist criticism. 4. Deconstruction. 5. Literature—History and criticism—Theory, etc. I. Title. PN56.R7W37 2011 809Ј.9145—dc22 2010046803 A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Special discounts are available for bulk purchases of this book. For more information, please contact Special Sales at 410-516-6936 or [email protected].
    [Show full text]