Victorian WillOhio University Press, 1989 - 493 pages John R. Reed, author of Victorian Conventions, The Natural History of H.G. Wells, and Decadent Style, has published a new critical study examining nineteenth-century British attitudes toward free will, determinism, providence, and fate. His new book, Victorian Will, argues for the need to understand a body of literature in its broadest historical and intellectual context. From among a number of different possibilities, Reed chose the concept of will -- whether understood as part of a providential scheme, as an illusory power in a determined existence, or as a free agent in a world of chance -- to illuminate the relationship of literary works of the period. Will was not only a prominent subject of discussion in Victorian England, but attitudes towards will affect form, style, and characterization in contemporary fiction, as Reed demonstrates in his discussion of the works of Mary Shelley, Bulwer-Lytton, Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and others. Victorian Will is destined to take its place beside Reed's other work as a standard reference in nineteenth-century study. |
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Page 70
... circumstances produces an effect on a given state of mind , the effect may be resistance , not submission . Man has a cancelling power in the will , a freedom not to act under the compulsions of circumstance . When force of circumstance ...
... circumstances produces an effect on a given state of mind , the effect may be resistance , not submission . Man has a cancelling power in the will , a freedom not to act under the compulsions of circumstance . When force of circumstance ...
Page 228
... circumstance upon deeds , " as only one element in Aram's fate . Others are the entangle- ments of human reasoning , the perversion of man's finest gifts through " self- paltering with the Fiend , " and the secret way that conscience ...
... circumstance upon deeds , " as only one element in Aram's fate . Others are the entangle- ments of human reasoning , the perversion of man's finest gifts through " self- paltering with the Fiend , " and the secret way that conscience ...
Page 319
... circumstance to produce mystery and the impression of chance activ- ity or coincidence . Thus the narrator , refusing to reveal what is presumably available to him since he is narrating a story already completed in the past , creates an ...
... circumstance to produce mystery and the impression of chance activ- ity or coincidence . Thus the narrator , refusing to reveal what is presumably available to him since he is narrating a story already completed in the past , creates an ...
Table des matières
Introduction to Part 1 | 5 |
The Self | 15 |
The Free Will Controversy | 29 |
Droits d'auteur | |
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Expressions et termes fréquents
accept achieve action argued asserted assumed becomes believed called cause central century chapter character Christian circumstance concept concerned consciousness create described desire destiny determinism Dickens direct discussion divine Eliot Essays evolution examine example existence explains expression faith fate feel fiction follow force freedom future George God's Hardy human idea imagination important impulse individual insanity interest issue John later less lives London man's material matter means Meredith mind moral narrative narrator nature necessity never nineteenth century novel offered pattern philosophical plot Poems position present progress providence reader reason religious represents responsibility Romantic says scheme seems sense shape Shelley social soul spirit story Subsequent references appear suggests theory things thought tion true truth University Press Victorian writers York