Modern Romance and Transformations of the Novel: The Gothic, Scott, Dickens

308 Pages·1992·2.97 MB·English

by  Ian Duncan

Modern romance and transformations of the novel examines the
relationship between the revival of romance and the
ascendancy of the novel in British literary culture between
1765 and 1850. The revival of romance as the literary
form of a pre-modern cultural identity provided a meta-
phor of lost origins to account for the otherness of fiction
to the world of historical experience. The decisive trans-
formation of the formal repertoire, cultural status and
material production of the novel, leading to its nine-
teenth-century heyday, took place in the historical
romances of Walter Scott. Ian Duncan's innovative and
illuminating study begins with the first identification of
the novel with a distinct genre of romance in late eight-
eenth-century Gothic fiction, and moves through Scott's
potent synthesis of romance and history, to the cultural
relations between Scott and his successor in the role of
national author, Dickens.
MODERN ROMANCE AND
TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE NOVEL
MODERN ROMANCE
AND TRANSFORMATIONS
OF THE NOVEL
The Gothic, Scott, Dickens
IAN DUNCAN
Assistant Professor of English, Tale University
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521395359
© Cambridge University Press 1992
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1992
This digitally printed first paperback version 2005
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Duncan, Ian.
Modern romance and transformations of the novel:
the Gothic, Scott, Dickens / Ian Duncan.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0 521 39535 6 (he)
1. English fiction — 19th century — History and criticism.
2. Romances —Adaptations — History and criticism. 3. Scott, Walter,
Sir, 1771-1832 - Criticism and interpretation. 4. Dickens, Charles,
1812-1870 - Criticism and interpretation. 5. English fiction - 18th
century - History and criticism. 6. Gothic revival (Literature) -
Great Britain. 7. Romanticism - Great Britain. 8. Scotland in
literature. I. Title.
PR868.R7D86 1992
823'.0850908-dc20 91-43862 CIP
ISBN-13 978-0-521-39535-9 hardback
ISBN-10 0-521-39535-6 hardback
ISBN-13 978-0-521-02106-7 paperback
ISBN-10 0-521-02106-5 paperback
For Ayje: her^ej ifin
Contents
Acknowledgements page xi
Prologue: fiction as fiction i
1 The culture of Gothic 20
2 The romance of subjection: Scot's Waverley 51
3 The suspension of belief 106
The end of the astrologer: Guy Mannering I I I
Against nature: The Bride of Lammermoor 135
Estate of grace: The Heart of Mid-Lothian 146
4 Scott and Dickens: the work of the author 177
5 Scott and Dickens: the end of history 209
Notes 254
Index 287