Ancestry and narrative in nineteenth-century British literature : blood relations from Edgeworth to Hardy
This study addresses the question of why ideas of ancestry and kinship were so important in nineteenth-century society, and particularly in the Victorian novel. Through readings of a range of literary texts, Sophie Gilmartin explores questions fundamental to the national and racial identity of Victorian Britons. What makes people believe that they are part of a certain region, race or nation? Is this sense of belonging based on superstitious beliefs, invented traditions, or fictions created to gain a sense of unity or community? As Britain extended her empire over foreign nations and races, questions of blood relations, of assimilation and difference, and of national and racial definition came to the fore
Print Book, English, 1998
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1998
Criticism, interpretation, etc
xiii, 281 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
9780521560948, 0521560942
38120540
Oral and written genealogies in Edgeworth's The absentee
A mirror for matriarchs: the cult of Mary Queen of Scots in nineteenth-century literature
Pedigree, nation, race: the case of Disraeli's Sybil and Tancred
'A sort of Royal family': alternative pedigrees in Meredith's Evan Harrington
Pedigree, sati and the widow in Meredith's The egoist
Pedigree and forgetting in Hardy
Geology and genealogy: Hardy's The well-beloved