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©2010 PAUL L. YEOH ALL RIGHTS RESERVED IMPROVING LANGUAGE: VICTORIAN LITERATURE AND THE CIVILIZING PROCESS by PAUL L. YEOH A Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Literatures in English Written under the direction of Kate Flint And approved by _________________________ _________________________ _________________________ _________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey October, 2010 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Improving Language: Victorian Literature and the Civilizing Process by Paul L. Yeoh Dissertation Director: Kate Flint Whereas “civilization” has often been dismissed in nineteenth-century studies as a rallying cry for empire, this dissertation offers a critical re-evaluation of how the Victorians understood this concept and its implications for literature’s educational possibilities. Integrating Norbert Elias’s theory of the civilizing process into a critical framework that draws on literary linguistics and rhetorical studies, my first chapter studies nineteenth-century writings from a range of disciplines – including economics, sociology, and linguistics – to show that “civilization” represented a key site for Victorian writers to reflect holistically on wider processes of social change and their linguistic dimensions. The second chapter analyzes the poetics of John Stuart Mill and Matthew Arnold in the context of this discourse. Arguing that the discourse of civilization provides a crucial framework for understanding how these thinkers conceived literary language as “improving,” I reveal the impact of this discourse on the period’s ii most influential theories about literature’s educational value. While the first part of the dissertation considers the literary implications of “civilization” on the level of theory, the second part explores how Victorian poets and novelists addressed these implications in practice by considering classic texts such as Jane Eyre and David Copperfield alongside less canonical female Bildungsromane and children’s adventure tales. Chapter Three begins by demonstrating how a range of Victorian genres dramatize and reflect on the civilizing process, then focuses specifically on narratives of writers’ Bildung (formation). I argue that these Bildungsromane show particularly clearly how Victorian writers’ creative engagement with the discourse of civilization enables them to construct a model of literary language that facilitates social integration, while fostering a value for individuality and inventiveness essential to active participation in social processes. Turning to narratives of feminine Bildung like Margaret Oliphant’s Miss Marjoribanks and Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, the concluding chapter illustrates how writers imagined how such private pastimes as reading might sustain wider civilizing trends. By exploiting the links between gender and genre, these texts are able, I suggest, to conceive the possibility of altering Victorian society’s deeply ingrained sexism through the strategic appropriation – rather than outright rejection – of its gendered norms. iii DEDICATION For Family, near and far, under whose love and care this dissertation was written iv Acknowledgements When I consider how many people helped make this dissertation possible, I feel truly blessed – and not a little daunted. For were there no generic conventions constraining these words of acknowledgement, the number of people to thank, and the stories to tell, would require a book of their own. As it is, my acknowledgements reflect only faintly the warm expressions of gratitude that I would like to heap on everyone who has supported me through graduate school. First, I would like to thank those most directly engaged with my project: Kate Flint, who has been an indefatigable and exemplary director, subjecting all my drafts to her eagle-eye and finding time in her grueling schedule to mentor me in the art of proposal-writing; George Levine, who led me to Mill’s essay on civilization in the first place and was a pillar of support throughout; and Michael McKeon, who brought his meticulous mind and generosity of spirit to my dissertation in equal measure. Although not officially on my committee, Barry Qualls encouraged me to develop my ideas as his TA for his Victorian fiction class, read almost the entire dissertation, and bestowed upon me the supreme gift of his friendship. Carolyn Williams, too, was a superlatively generous reader and mentor, and I also received helpful criticism and practical advice from Myra Jehlen, Dianne Sadoff, and John Kucich. My reading in literary linguistics under the guidance of Derek Attridge shaped my argument in crucial ways, as did Jane K. Brown’s delightful class on the Wilhelm Meister novels in Spring 2005. Among my earlier mentors who sent me to Rutgers and have continued to take an interest in my work, I would especially like to thank Susan Ang, Arthur Lindley, Anneliese Krämer, and Jon Klancher. v The Rutgers Graduate English community provided an intellectually stimulating and supportive environment whose true worth I have only begun to appreciate more fully as I prepare to leave. Cheryl Robinson, Eileen Faherty, and Courtney Borack were vital sources of administrative and moral support, and the fellow graduate students from whose kindness and ideas I benefited are too many to name here. In particular, however, I wish to thank the members of the Nineteenth-Century Studies Group, as well as the participants of the dissertation writing groups led by Richard Miller, Jonah Siegel, and Michael McKeon. My research for the dissertation was greatly facilitated by the expertise and generosity of Kevin Mulcahy, who helped me track down elusive figures such as W. Cooke-Taylor and acquired several books I needed for the library. Generous funding from Rutgers University and the Department of English was, of course, key to the timely completion of this dissertation. I am especially grateful for having received the Qualls Fellowship and the Rutgers SAS Mellon Dissertation Completion Fellowship. Finally, my heartfelt thanks goes out to all the friends and family whose love and care served to strengthen the Jersey roots of this shaky Singapore transplant. The friendships growing out of my involvement with the St. Matthew’s Choir and the Pride Center of New Jersey played particularly important roles in vivifying the everyday life that underwrites all intellectual labor. No less importantly, my immediate family – my father Kiat Boon, my siblings Marjory and Mark, and Aunt Teresa – constantly assured me of our connectedness by visiting me and talking to me on an almost daily basis. A special word of thanks is reserved for my mother, Audrey Ambrose-Yeoh. Besides vi reading a great deal of my writing, she has been in many ways my closest fellow-traveler, and appreciates best the re-making of self that this dissertation has entailed. vii EPIGRAPH If then the power of speech is a gift as great as any that can be named,—if the origin of language is by many philosophers even considered to be nothing short of divine,—if by means of words the secrets of the heart are brought to light, pain of soul is relieved, experiences recorded, and wisdom perpetuated,—if by great authors the many are drawn up into unity, national character is fixed, a people speaks, the past and the future, the East and the West are brought into communication with each other,— if such men are, in a word, the spokesmen and prophets of the human family,—it will not answer to make light of Literature or to neglect its study; rather we may be sure that, in proportion as we master it in whatever language, and imbibe its spirit, we shall ourselves become in our own measure the minister of like benefits to others, be they many or few, be they in the obscurer or the more distinguished walks of life,—who are united to us by social ties, and are within the sphere of our personal influence. John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University viii Contents Abstract ii Dedication iv Acknowledgements v Epigraph viii Introduction 1 Doubtful Connections: Literature and Civilization in the Nineteenth Century Improving Language: Further Incentives for Studying the Civilizing Effects of Victorian Literature The Power of Refinement: Reading for Improvement in Jane Eyre Chapter One Victorian Discourse on the Civilizing Process: A Map for Literary Study 56 In Search of Lost Civilizations Rediscovering Victorian Discourse on Civilization, 1830-1870 What does Civilized Language Mean? Chapter Two Theorizing Literacure: John Stuart Mill and Matthew Arnold on the Civilizing Powers of Literary Language 115 Gaps in Civilized Language: The Need for a Literary Supplement In Search of “Literacure”: Contextualizing Victorian Notions of Literature as Therapy Civilizing Magic: J. S. Mill and the Possibilities of Literary Form Turning on the Political Self: Re-reading Arnold’s Innocent Language Chapter Three The Language of Improvement: Civilization in the Literary Text 192 “In Quietness and in Confidence Shall Be Your Strength”: The Soothing Powers of Victorian Literature The Road of Excess: Civilizing Romance Imagining Civilization’s Discontents The Improving Characters of the Victorian Bildungsroman Chapter Four Civilizing Women: The Power of Connecting Small Things with Great 281 Angels or Demons? Victorian Representations of Women’s Influence on Civilization Planless Riddles or Grand Designs? Feminine Projects of