Research Catalog

Spaces of the sacred and profane : Dickens, Trollope, and the Victorian cathedral town

Title
Spaces of the sacred and profane : Dickens, Trollope, and the Victorian cathedral town / Elizabeth A. Bridgham.
Author
Bridgham, Elizabeth A.
Publication
New York : Routledge, 2008.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Filter by

1 Item

StatusFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
Book/TextUse in library PR468.C3 .B75 2008Off-site

Details

Description
ix, 192 pages; 24 cm.
Summary
"This study examines the unique cultural space of Victorian cathedral towns as they appear in the literary work of Charles Dickens and Anthony Trollope, arguing that Dickens and Trollope use the cathedral town's enclosure, and its overt connections between sacred and secular, present and past, as an ideal locus from which to critique Victorian religious attitudes, aesthetic anxieties, business practices, and even immigration. By displacing these issues from the metropolis, these social authors defamiliarize them, raising what might have been considered strictly urban problems to the level of national crises. By situating contemporary debates in cathedral towns, Dickens and Trollope complicate the restrictive dichotomy between urban and rural space often drawn by contemporary critics and Victorian fiction writers alike. In this book, Bridgham focuses on the appearance of three such key concerns appearing in the cathedral towns of each writer: religious fragmentation, the social value of artisticlabor, and the Gothic revival. Dickens and Trollope reject Romantic nostalgia by concentrating on the ancient, yet vital (as opposed to ruined) edifices of the cathedrals, and by demonstrating ways in which modern sensibilities, politics, and comforts supersede the values of the cloister. In this sense, their cathedral towns are not idealized escapes; rather, they reflect the societies of which they are a part."--Publisher's description.
Series Statement
Literary criticism and cultural theory
Uniform Title
Literary criticism and cultural theory
Subject
  • Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 > Criticism and interpretation
  • Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882 > Criticism and interpretation
  • Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870
  • Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882
  • Trollope, Anthony 1815-1882
  • Dickens, Charles 1812-1870
  • Dickens, Charles
  • Trollope, Anthony
  • 1800-1899
  • English literature > 19th century > History and criticism
  • Cathedrals in literature
  • Sacred space in literature
  • Literature and society > Great Britain > History > 19th century
  • English literature
  • Literature and society
  • Bischofsstadt Motiv
  • Great Britain
Genre/Form
  • Criticism, interpretation, etc.
  • History.
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (p. 177-184) and index.
Contents
Ambivalent spaces -- Monstrous unions : Dickens, Trollope, and the (Anglo-) Catholic question -- Doctrinal dissonance : cathedral music and the issue of vocation -- "Broken niche and defaced statue" : creativity in the cathedral -- Picturesque escape or reimagined space? : the cathedral town in context.
ISBN
  • 0415979528
  • 9780415979528
  • 9780203934975
  • 0203934970
LCCN
  • 2007018585
  • 99819739891
OCLC
  • ocn124162864
  • 124162864
  • SCSB-1459011
Owning Institutions
Princeton University Library