Romantic Friendship in Victorian LiteratureCarolyn Oulton recovers the strategies nineteenth-century authors used to justify the ideal of same-sex romantic friendship and the anxieties these strategies reveal. Informed by recent insights into the erotic potential of such relationships, but focused on romantic friendship as an independent and fully formulated ideal, Oulton departs from other critics who view romantic friendship as either nebulous and culturally naive or an invocation of homoerotic responsiveness. By considering both male and female friendships, Oulton uncovers surprising parallels between them in novels and poetry by authors such as Dickens, Tennyson, Disraeli, Charlotte Brontë, and Braddon. Oulton also examines conduct manuals, periodicals, and religious treatises, tracing developments from mid-century to the fin de siècle, when romantic friendship first came under serious attack. Her book is a persuasive challenge to those who view mid-Victorian England, existing in a state of blissful pre-Freudian innocence, as unproblematically accommodating of passionate same-sex relationships. |
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Page 42
... Selections from German Literature , 76 ) . Anticipating Trumbull's later study of friendship rites , in which the identity of one friend is merged with the other , true friendship is defined as requiring ' by its very nature , that ...
... Selections from German Literature , 76 ) . Anticipating Trumbull's later study of friendship rites , in which the identity of one friend is merged with the other , true friendship is defined as requiring ' by its very nature , that ...
Page 159
... Selections from German Literature ( New York : Gould , Newman and Seaton , 1839 ) . Eliot , George , The Mill on the Floss ( Oxford : World's Classics , 1998 ) . Ellis , Havelock and John Addington Symonds , Sexual Inversion ( London ...
... Selections from German Literature ( New York : Gould , Newman and Seaton , 1839 ) . Eliot , George , The Mill on the Floss ( Oxford : World's Classics , 1998 ) . Ellis , Havelock and John Addington Symonds , Sexual Inversion ( London ...
Contents
The Problem of Male Friendship | 33 |
The Ends of Female Friendship | 71 |
Romantic Friendship and the Satirists | 107 |
Copyright | |
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Allan allows Amelia anxiety appears Armadale Audley Aurora Leigh behaviour Bleak House Carmilla Caroline central character Charlotte Brontë claims context conventions Cynthia David Copperfield death despite Dickens Dickens's Dorian Gray emotion erotic Esther expression Faderman feeling female friendship female romantic friendship feminine fiction fin de siècle gender George girls heterosexual homosexual ideal illness influence innocence intense friendship intimacy Ladies of Llangollen Lady Audley's Secret later Laura lesbian London Lord Henry love plot Lydia male friendship male romantic friendship Marian marriage marriage plot marry masculine Memoriam mid-century Midwinter Midwinter's Molly Molly's moral narrative narrator nineteenth century Notably novel Oscar Wilde passion perceived Platonics potential protagonist reader Red Pottage relations relationship repeatedly response Robert rôle same-sex friendship satire sense sexual Shirley social status Steerforth story suggests Tennyson texts Thackeray tradition ultimately Vanity Fair Vicinus Victorian Victorian Literature Wilkie Collins woman women writers young youth