The natural accidents of dancing -- Jane Austen and the semiotics of dance: the manner of reading -- Reckless debutantes and the spectacle of "coming out" -- Sylphs in the parlor -- catch them if you can -- Seeds of discontent : dance manias, medical inquiry, and Victorian (ill) health -- The mourning after : dancing the Victorians past
Summary
Dancing out of Line transports readers back to the 1840s, when the craze for social and stage dancing forced Victorians into a complex relationship with the moving body in its most voluble, volatile form. By partnering cultural discourses with representations of the dance and the dancer in novels such as Jane Eyre, Bleak House, and Daniel Deronda, Molly Engelhardt makes explicit many of the ironies underlying Victorian practices that up to this time have gone unnoticed in critical circles. She analyzes the role of the illustrious dance master, who created an
