Title Victorian lessons in empathy and difference / Rebecca N. Mitchell

Published Columbus : The Ohio State University Press, [2011] ©2011

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Description 1 online resource (xiii, 153 pages) : illustrations (chiefly color) Series Victorian critical interventions Victorian critical interventions. Contents Introduction. Alterity and the limits of realism -- Mysteries of Dickensian literacies -- Sawing hard stones : reading others in George Eliot's fiction -- Thomas Hardy's narrative control -- Learning to see : Whistler's visual aversions -- Conclusion. Hidden lives and unvisited tombs Summary "Looking closely at the work of Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and James McNeill Whistler, Rebecca N. Mitchell reframes conventional considerations of Victorian empathy and argues that the recognition of alterity, and not identification, is the basis of the intersubjectivity depicted in realist texts and paintings. In the nineteenth century, encounters with the other are represented through the disconnection between subjects within the novel or painting's space; representation of that intersubjective inscrutability is elemental to the realist project." "Victorian Lessons in Empathy and Difference amplifies the fundamental distinction between the characters within a text or image--who are intimately unknowable to each other--and the material texts and images--which are eminently knowable to the reader or viewer. To this end, Mitchell's exploration of alterity is grounded in the tradition of Emmanuel Levinas, whose work establishes a vocabulary for considering otherness outside of dialectical oppositions, binaries which so often define recent constructions of Victorian subjectivity. The study turns explicitly from the usual paradigms for encountering Victorian otherness--race, gender, colonized status, or class--to focus instead on the representations of difference where proximity typically precludes the recognition of alterity"--Publisher's description Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Print version record Subject Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 -- Criticism and interpretation Eliot, George, 1819-1880 -- Criticism and interpretation Hardy, Thomas, 1840-1928 -- Criticism and interpretation Whistler, James McNeill, 1834-1903 -- Criticism and interpretation SUBJECT Whistler, James McNeill, 1834-1903 -- Criticism and interpretation Hardy, Thomas, 1840-1928 -- Criticism and interpretation Eliot, George, 1819-1880 -- Criticism and interpretation Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 -- Criticism and interpretation Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870. fast (OCoLC)fst00028294 Eliot, George, 1819-1880. fast (OCoLC)fst00034497 Hardy, Thomas, 1840-1928. fast (OCoLC)fst00034596 Whistler, James McNeill, 1834-1903. fast (OCoLC)fst00032885 Subject Other (Philosophy) in literature. Other (Philosophy) in art. English literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism Art, English -- 19th century. Art, American -- 19th century Empathy in literature. Art, American. Art, English. Empathy in literature. English literature. Other (Philosophy) in art. Other (Philosophy) in literature. Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc. Literary criticism. Literary criticism. Critiques littéraires. Form Electronic book ISBN 9780814270608 0814270603 0814292615 9780814292617

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