Victorian Literature and the Victorian State: Character and Governance in a Liberal Society by Lauren Goodlad

This book argues that many of the contradictions on topics such as social welfare, poverty, and the government's ideal role in society inherent in Victorian viewpoints come from the fact that "Victorian Britain was a liberal society"--and that this liberalism cut in two ways to both promote freedom and to insist on state aid as a means of achieving social health (vii). While Goodlad sees a Foucauldian perspective as useful in untangling the different strains of thought in Victorian Society, she finds later Foucault more useful than the genealogical approach of Discipline and Punish. Many of Goodlad's readings focus on pastorship--that is, someone (usually middle class) guiding the poor to better character and better living. She reads Dickens (Oliver Twist, Bleak House, and Our Mutual Friend), Frances Trollope, Anthony Trollope, George Gissing, and H.G. Wells among others. These readings arrive in conjunction with a careful social history: Goodlad does a nice job of showing the relationship between the literature, its authors' opinions, and the culture in which it was produced. I found her reading of the educational system in Our Mutual Friend particularly helpful. While this book is out of my field (and out of my usual mode of theoretical approach), I found its argument to be cogent and reasonably well supported.

Emmanuel Appadocca, or, Blighted Life: A Tale of the Boucaneers by Maxwell Philip

This novel focuses on Emmanuel Appadocca's attempt to avenge himself and his mother on his father, who abandoned them both. It has elements of both the gothic and sentimental romances. Appadocca sees his piracy in a Robin-Hood light; he avoids stealing from those who have made their money honestly. An intriguing tale of adventure on the high seas.

The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar

This book is one of the texts that started the effort to reclaim a female canon. There are great readings of the Brontës, George Eliot, and Jane Austen. While at times the arguments made by the text can seem less like arguments, this fact actually shows how important the text is--many of its assertions, radical at the time, are now commonly accepted. I found the reading of the Snow White story particularly intriguing and persuasive.

The Lamplighter by Maria Susanna Cummins

This book tells the story of Gerty Flint, who overcomes a poor and deprived childhood to find happiness. The story is pretty good--of course there's a bit of gothicism in the family romance (missing family members) who reappear by the end, and a good measure of religious sentiment (but not so bad as The Wide, Wide World), and a fair amount of sentimentalism. There are a few points where Gerty seems almost modern--she wants to stand up for herself and earn her own way, at one point, and at another, she lets another girl be saved from the fire instead of herself, but she never quite breaks out in a fully satisfying way. Still, I'm interested in the intricate plot, and the character development (which at times seems a bit flat or uneven). Much more enjoyable than I thought it might be.

The Bondwoman's Narrative by Hannah Crafts

Although this book is not strictly autobiographical, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. makes a good case for it being written by a woman who escaped slavery and then (presumably) taught school in New Jersey. It's really well-written, and I found the plot both moving and intriguing. The book does a really nice job of appropriating sentimental and gothic conventions and adapting them to the genre of the slave narrative. I especially liked the part about the linden and the portraits at the first house. I was also interested in the racial and gender crossing that happens throughout the text.

Bug-Jargal by Victor Hugo

In this book Hugo has fictionalized the Haitian Revolution. He uses a frame story set during the Reign of Terror to tell a story about a young French officer, his fiancée, his loyal friend and subordinate, and Pierrot, a revolutionary who is also in love with the officer's fiancée. I was particularly interested in this story for all the masking that went on (Pierrot/Bug-Jargal, Habibrah, the dwarf's divided loyalties, the doubling of Bug-Jargal and D'Auverney). The story ends up being strongly anti-revolutionary and also strongly opposed to cultural mixing (in fact, D'Auverney's fiancée, Marie, is also his first cousin). The story is at times quite sentimental. I enjoyed this story quite a bit.

Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson

This book chronicles the adventures of the lovely Pamela, a beautiful young maid who converts her master from a rake to an honorable gentleman through her goodness and virtue. At times Richardson waxes long. Very long. And the gender politics are not always what I would prefer--Mr. B. makes a big point of how a woman can marry up because her husband ought to be her master, whereas if she marries down, she subjects herself to someone below her, socially. Still, Pamela shows resistance to passive acceptance, first in her commitment to virtue over her duties to her master, and later, as her husband gives her a list of rules (48!) that she ought to follow as his wife, she copies them out (for her parents to read) and then gives some gentle commentary. Another part of the book I found useful was the insistence on the connection between the written word (Pamela's journal entries to her parents) and the soul--several characters see these letters as a way to know Pamela. Furthermore, during her captivity, Pamela secrets her writings on her body--emphasizing that reading them without her consent is as much a violation as the other tricks Mr. B. undertakes. Finally, I think the Sally Godfrey story is worth mentioning. It allows Pamela to demonstrate her goodness twice over--first in proving that Mr. B. was a rake who needed to be reformed and second in her generosity in bringing Miss Goodwin (daughter of Sally Godfrey and Mr. B. ) to live with them.

Love and Death in the American Novel by Leslie Fiedler

I read the first edition (published in 1960) of this book. Fiedler writes more casually than academics today: he neither uses extensive footnotes nor includes a bibliography, and at times his perspective on women seems a bit off to me. Still, this book is mammoth (both in size and reputation).

Fiedler starts by tracing the history of the seduction novel in England and elsewhere. He contends that love and death are two of the most salient themes of the American novel, and that in American literature, the Clarissa figure becomes split into a dark lady and an angelic, fair lady. He identifies James Fenimore Cooper's historical romances with those of Sir Walter Scott, and traces a gothic tradition that starts with Charles Brockden Brown, goes through the work of Poe, to a full-blown Faustian bargain, whether done by Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter, or in Moby Dick, or in Huckleberry Finn. Indeed, Fiedler identifies gothic as the most successful form in America. Fiedler also traces the male homosocial bond that crosses racial boundaries, and identifies this bond as extremely important (Huck-Jim, Ishmael-Queequeg, and Natty Bumpo-Chingachgook all provide examples). He also reads Faulkner (especially Absalom, Absalom!) and Pierre to great profit.