Men Writing Women: Male Authorship, Narrative Strategies, and Woman's Agency
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MEN WRITING WOMEN: MALE AUTHORSHIP, NARRATIVE STRATEGIES, AND WOMAN'S AGENCY IN THE LATE-VICTORIAN NOVEL DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Molly C. Youngkin, M.A. The Ohio State University 2002 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Marlene Longenecker, Co-adviser James Phelan, Co-adviser Co-adviser David Riede Clare Simmons Co-adviser English Graduate Program UMI Number: 3083785 UMI___ ® UMI Microform 3083785 Copyright 2003 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road PC Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ABSTRACT My dissertation considers the late-Victorian novel in light of the relationships among literary mode, gender, and the marketplace. I examine how four male authors— George Gissing, Thomas Hardy, George Meredith, and George Moore-negotiated the late-Victorian market as they wrote "woman-centered" novels and entered a public debate about the cultural status of real-life women. These authors not only had to negotiate the influence of literary modes such as French naturalism, Jamesian psychological realism, and the "new realism" (of which some of them were clear proponents) but also liberal-feminist realism, which was predicated on realistic representation of woman's agency in literary works. As feminist periodicals such as Shafts and The Woman's Herald show, liberal- feminist realism required representation of the difficult conditions women faced living in Victorian culture and the triumphs of some (but not all) women over these difficult cultural conditions. Further, this definition of realism places strong emphasis on the connection between form and content; to triumph over difficult conditions, real-life women needed to assert agency through three methods: consciousness, the spoken word, and physical actions. These methods of asserting agency correspond to three narrative strategies: internal perspective, dialogue, and description of characters' actions. According to the feminist aesthetic of the day, effective literary representations of woman's agency combined these three narrative strategies. Both directly and indirectly aware of the criteria for realism set up by liberal- feminist periodicals, Gissing, Hardy, Meredith, and Moore negotiated the requirements of fhis literary mode in varying degrees. As the individual chapters of my dissertation show, each author made his own decisions about how thoroughly to incorporate the tenets of liberal-feminist realism. Nevertheless, all four authors were subject to similar cultural conditions and, as a result, incorporated this mode at least to some degree. In doing so, these authors helped shape a literary mode that acted as a stepping stone from mid-Victorian realism to modernism. Rather than seeing the transition from realism to modernism as a rupture, in which modernists primarily react against Victorian conventions, we should view this transition as more gradual, in which an interplay between realist and anti-realist narrative strategies exists. Ill ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The writing of this dissertation could not have been completed without the help of the outstanding faculty members at Ohio State University. First, I thank Marlene Longenecker and James Phelan, co-advisers to this dissertation, for their unflagging interest in and support for my scholarly work. From my first day in the Ph.D. program, Marlene offered her complete belief in me, and she took me through each step of the program—coursework, the candidacy exam, and the dissertation—with great care and a good sense of humor. Jim, too, showed immediate interest in my work, and I quickly saw that we shared an excitement for formalist criticism. Jim introduced me to new ways of thinking about literary texts and interpretation; my workwith him on the journal Narrative provided a learning experience I could not have found through coursework alone. Both Marlene and Jim spent many hours reading through drafts of not only my dissertation but also conference papers, programs of study, and other important documents, and I thank them for their time. I also thank David Riede and Clare Simmons, committee members on both my exam and dissertation committees. Their courses on Romantic and Victorian literature provided a strong foundation for the reading I did for the candidacy exam, and their critical eyes and minds provided valuable feedback on each of the dissertation chapters. Like Marlene and Jim, they spent many hours reading chapters of the dissertation and other pieces of writing I produced while in the program, and I thank them for their time. A special thanks to Clare for her leadership of the dissertation seminar in Spring 2002; working with her and the other graduate students in the group gave me the needed push to move from drafting to revising. In addition to the support I received from these faculty members, I received iv support from many others in the English department. I thank the other faculty members in the department with whom I took courses, especially Les Tannenbaum, who served as my mentor for 903: "Teaching College English" and continued to offer advice and encouragement as I worked on the dissertation. Also, my thanks to Lisa Kiser, Susan Williams, and Debra Moddelmog, who served as Directors of Graduate Studies during my time in the program. Their guidance, and the help of their administrative staff, especially Kathleen Gagel, was valuable to me as I negotiated the various requirements of the program. In addition, 1 thank Peter Bracher and Barry Milligan, of Wright State University, with whom I took courses as a master's degree student. Their courses in nineteenth-century British literature sparked my initial interest in this topic, and their support of my work as a Ph.D. candidate has been much appreciated. The writing of this dissertation was supported by several grants and fellowships from the department and the wider university. The Edward P. J. Corbett Research Award, given by the Department of English, allowed me to travel to Arizona State University in the early days of writing the dissertation. There, I was able to workw ith documents pertaining to my chapter on Moore, and I established a good foundation for the entire dissertation. My thanks to Marilyn Wurzburger, Head of Special Collections, and Carol Moore, Curator of Manuscripts, at Arizona State University's Hayden Library, for their very generous assistance with my research. The Elizabeth D. Gee Grant, given by the Department of Women's Studies, and the Alumni Grant for Graduate Research and Scholarship, given by the Graduate School, allowed me to make two trips to England and Ireland, where 1 was able to workwith the Society of Authors archive in the British Library and the letters of George Moore in the National Library of Ireland. My thanks to the staff at the British Library, London, and the National Library of Ireland, Dublin, for their assistance. Alsokey to my trips to England and Ireland was the Summer Research Fellowship, given by the Department of English and the Graduate School, which allowed me time off from teaching to devote myself fully to my research goals. Finally, the Presidential Fellowship, given by the Graduate School, allowed me an additional year off from teaching, during which I wrote the majority of the dissertation. My thanks to my V outside recommenders. Jay Clayton and Robyn Warhol, for their enthusiasm for my project. Without this and other grants and fellowships, I certainly would not have finished the dissertation as quickly as 1 did, nor would 1 have been able to incorporate the am ount of original research 1 have. In addition to the institutional support I have received while working on this dissertation, I want to thank my graduate student peers, who provided the friendship needed fo keep writing when the writing was tough. My thanks to Jennifer Cognard- Black and Jennifer Phegley, both of whom had graduated from the program long before 1 reached the dissertation stage but who offered me their friendship and advice when I entered the program. Their suggestions about all things academic still guide me four years later. Also, thanks to other graduate students in Nineteenth-Century British Literature, who provided good company in classes, reading groups, and other informal gatherings: Sally Anderson, Scott Banville, Katarina Gephardt, Kyoung-Min Han, Cheryl Hindrichs, and Dan Kline. Finally, a special thanks to Paulo Campos. His companionship during the two years I worked on this dissertation was extremely important to me. He read many of fhe chapters in their very early stages, and his encouraging comments about my workgave me the courage to keep writing. Last, but certainly not least, my thanks to my family: Betty, Bill, and Jeremy Youngkin. Their belief in my abilities is long-standing, and they have provided both the important foundational and the much-needed ongoing support for all fhe work I do. My gratitude to them is sincere and deep. VI VITA January 23, 1970 ........................................ Born - La Grange Park, Illinois 1995 ...............................................................B.C.S. Humanities, University of Dayton 1998 ............................................................. M.A. English, Wright State University 1998 - 2001 ................................................