Why Victorian Literature Still Matters is a passionate
defense of Victorian literature’s enduring impact and
importance for readers interested in the relationship between
literature and life, reading and thinking.
* Explores the prominence of Victorian literature for
contemporary readers and academics, through the author’s
unique insight into why it is still important today
* Provides new frames of interpretation for key Victorian works
of literature and close readings of important texts
* Argues for a new engagement with Victorian literature, from
general readers and scholars alike
* Seeks to remove Victorian literature from an entrenched set of
values, traditions and perspectives – demonstrating how vital and
resonant it is for modern literary and cultural analysis
Spis treści
Introduction: The Victorian Bump and Where to Find It 1
1 Victorian Hard Wiring 9
2 Isaiah and Ezekiel – But What About Charley? 35
3 Not So Straightforward: Realist Prose and What It Hides Within
Itself 54
4 A Literature In Time 81
5 Individual Agents 112
6 A Few of My Favorite Things: A Glove, a Sandal, and Plaited
Hair 138
Notes 161
Index 168
O autorze
Philip Davis is Professor of English Literature in the School of English, University of Liverpool, UK. He is the author of The Victorians and, most recently, Bernard Malamud: A Writer’s Life. His other books include The Experience of Reading; Real Voices: On Reading, and Memory and Writing: from Wordsworth to Lawrence, as well as works on Shakespeare and Samuel Johnson. He is also editor of The Reader, a non-academic literary magazine aimed at the serious reader.